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THE UKRAINIAN PROBLEMS. 

^^ No. 6. == 



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UKRAINA AND THE PEACE- 
CONFERENCE. 



1919 



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Ukraina and the Peace-Confe- 
rence. 

By Professor Stanislaus Dnistrianskyj, Ll.-D. 

I. The Right of Self- Determination of 
Peoples. 

Important and difficult problems are put before 
the Peace Conference of the Allied Powers. There 
is urgent need of establishing a new system of the 
world on the ruins of old ones, broken down by the 
war. The first task must be to bring a general and 
permanent peace to the peoples stirred up by the 
Great War, and it is obvious that this object cannot 
be secured by merely proclaiming the ideas of "right 
and justice" and the principle of self-determination 
of peoples, but those ideas and that principle will 
have to be realized, to lead the peoples of the 
universe into the peaceful paths of order and of 
pacific and orderly international traffic. Even the 
idea of a genuine League of Nations can only be 
accomplished, if provision is made that all peoples, 
who as members of the League of Nations must on 
principle enjoy the same rights, shall obtain equal 
rights, and no people shall be ruled by another 
people or dependent on another people's mercy. 



Without solving and actually carrying through 
the problems, which helped to bring about the Great 
War, permanent peace is an impossible thing. 

From the defeat of Imperialism and Militarism all 
consequences must be drawn, and an order must be 
established, which shall raise the nations again on 
the basis of genuine democracy, liberty, and national 
independence. Though the catehword of "Self-deter- 
mination of Peoples" was coined only during the 
war, the problem itself was not new, on the contrary, 
it had been alive already before the war and was 
the fundamental idea, which brought about the 
Great War. 

A short glance at the history of the past and 
the present century will suffice to convince oneself 
of the fact, that the striving of the nations for politi- 
cal and cultural emancipation was one of the principal 
causes of the Great War. 

There is in modern times no closer tie than of 
the community of men, which is called a people or 
nation. This is the result of a development originating 
in the French Revolution. The impulse came from 
Rousseau's theory of the sovereignty of the people. 

The French Revolution asserted the Rights of 
Man and put all men of all ranks and classes on 'an 
equality with each other. This feeling of equality and 
harmony brought the elements of the nations nearer 
to each other and the consciousness of national 
kinship arose among them. This was followed by 
endeavours at the political union of the national 
elements and with this is connected the tendency 
towards the formation of national states. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

i S C C C 



dAN 16 1928 

DOCUMENTS DIVISION 



The coherent national elements that, by the prin- 
ciple of state-formation then in force, had been dis- 
membered into several states, united at last and were 
joined into a national union. Thus in the course of 
the nineteenth century the German Empire and the 
Kingdom of Italy took birth. 

Not all nations, however, were allowed, by the 
formation of national states to attain the ideal of national 
union. Nor was this ideal altogether attained in all 
national states, as for instance large portions of the 
German nation were left outside the German Empire 
in the frame of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, while 
on the other hand the Germans, by the annexation 
of French and Polish territories, incorporated large 
heterogeneous elements in their political organism. 

It is universally known, to what extent the an- 
nexation by the Germans of heterogeneous national 
territories called forth the Great War. 

In other states, where several peoples lived to- 
gether, who did not form independent communities, 
the nations could not immediately rend asunder the 
political organisms. Here the idea of nationalism 
lead to fights for national freedom, first of all on the 
Balkan Peninsula. 

It is to the idea of nationalism that Greece, 
Servia and Bulgaria owe their birth. 

At the Berlin Congress, however, the national 
Balkan problems were not thoroughly solved. On the 
one hand the new states did not obtain all their 
national territories, for rather considerable national 
territories, that ought to belong to them, were left 
with Turkey; on the other hand territories were 



assigned to the new states, which by nationality were 
connected with other political organisms. 

Furthermore taking into consideration, that it was 
not full independence, that was granted to the Balkan 
States at the Berlin Congress, but that they got into 
a great dependency on the neighbouring states, it is 
obvious how the Balkan Peninsula came to be the 
hotbed of incessant combat among the nations, and 
that the neighbouring great powers made the Balkan 
Peninsula the theatre of their wrestling for hegemony. 
Nor could the Bucharest Treaty bring an adjustment 
of the national conflict, since it disregarded the ethno- 
graphical boundaries of the national territories. Thus 
a gulf, not to be bridged over, opened between the 
Bulgarians and the Servians, and that is why in the 
Great War we see Bulgaria on the side of the 
Central Powers. 

That the Balkan Question gave the first impulse 
to the Great War is a fact universally known. 

Surveying the development of the national problem 
in the other states of Europe, we come in short to 
the following results : 

In Russia, before the war, Tsarism kept down 
the numerous nationalities by strong measures, in 
other states, where several nations lived side by side, 
efforts were made some way or other to do justice 
to the national problem. 

It could be made no secret that the idea of na- 
tionalism, which in the course of the nineteenth cen- 
tury had led to the formation of new states, would 
exercise great influence on all other nations. In the 
meanwhile the nations tried to obtain such political 



power in the states, as was to warrant politiea! 
independence to their own nationality within the frame 
of strange political organisms. To comply with their 
endeavours modern states (setting Tsaristic Russia 
aside) have taken two ways. 

In Belgium as well as in Switzerland the demo- 
cratic endeavours of the nations were met by the 
concession of extensive political liberties and the 
recognition of the equality, of all nations, so there 
arose no need to split up the sovereignty of the 
state according to national territories. Nevertheless 
Belgium, owing to the imperfect equalization of the 
Flemish language with the French language of the 
Walloons, could not be spared vehement political 
combats, carried on for many years between both 
nations of the country, which created a deep anta- 
gonism between them. 

Another way was chosen by Austria. Here the 
principle of equality of rights was expressly establi- 
shed by the constitution, but was turned into the 
reverse on being carried out. The empire was not 
divided according to national territories, but according 
to provinces, and in the provinces the nations, who 
were in the minority, were delivered up to other na- 
tions, who often had only a chance majority. So an 
antagonism arose on the one hand between the imperial 
government and the province governments, the majority 
nations trying to shake off the remaining part of 
their dependency on the supreme power of the state, 
and on the other hand an antagonism between the 
nations, the minorities endeavouring to free them- 
selves from the rule of the majority nations. 



In consequence whereof a conflict was kindled 
among the nations of Austria, which affected the 
whole state machinery. 

When the Great War broke out, indeed all 
nations of Austria were forced to fight on the side 
of the Central Powers, but it was obvious a priori, 
that each nation was aiming at her own deliverance 
and that the nations had gone to the war for their 
own right of self-determination. 

So there can be no doubt, that the main fact 
that called forth the Great War was, that the problem 
of nationality had to choose this way of being- 
brought to a definite solution. The re-annexation 
of Alsace-Lorraine, the independence of the "small 
nations", the restitution of Poland, -- these are the 
forms, in which the problem of the deliverance of 
nations made its first appearance in' the war; soon 
other national questions followed, such as the Czecho- 
slovak, the Yugoslav, the Ukrainian questions etc., 
and when in consequence of the events of war Russian 
Tsarism with its "jail of nations" collapsed, the 
Russian revolution proclaimed the Rights of the 
People and first of all the right of self-determination 
of peoples. It was not by mere chance that President 
Wilson made Self-determination of Peoples a point 
of his programme and that it was agreed to by all 
Allied Powers. 

So the question is: On what principles is the 
Peace Conference to act, to secure self-determination 
to the peoples? 

Self-determination of the Peoples is no arbitrary 
conception, but has sprung from the long combats 



of modern nations, and was given sanction to by 
the Great War through the defeat of Imperialism. 

Self-determination belongs to the nature of modern 
peoples. To decide upon the principles of this right 
of self-determination one must first make up one's 
mind, as to what has to be the condition of a com- 
munity to become the subject of self-determination, 
in short, what is the nature of a people or a nation 
in a modern sense of the word, which preliminary 
conditions are required to make it partake of national 
self-determination ? 

On the definition and the political importance 
of the idea of the People a large literature has arisen, 
which shows distinct traits of the political currents 
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the same 
measure as those currents changed, the relation 
between state and people was subject to ever varying 
criticism, so pre-war political science gives us no 
conclusive judgement of their relation, but represents 
the picture of a chaos, making arbitrary distinctions 
without regarding the natural development of things. 
Although it was evident, for instance, that there are 
different peoples in one state, some scholars did not 
shrink from representing the whole population of a 
country as one people in a technical sense of the 
term ; or to obscure the true, natural relation between 
people and state, a distinction was made between 
people and nation, nation being represented as some- 
thing higher, having no immediate connection with 
the formation of states, while people, being some- 
thing lower, purely ethical, was to subject itself t" 
the state at all risks. 



8 



To justify further inequalities a distinction was 
created between "historical" and merely "ethnical" 
peoples, as though not all peoples were historical 
and ethnical at the same time. 

All those scholastical distinctions were tho- 
roughly thrown over by the war. Into the fight the 
peoples entered as such without caring much, whether 
by others they were considered to be peoples or 
nations, historical or ethnical peoples (e. g. the 
Roumanians and the Yugoslavs in Hungary). On the 
contrary, the protection of the so-called "small nations" 
was one of the most important problems of the War 
of the World. 

Nowadays in politics nation and people, whether 
big or small, are identical terms, since they have 
shaken off all the attributes arbitrarily assigned 
to them. 

A people or nation is a larger community of men, 
based on common descent, but beyond that a cultural 
union, created by manners and customs, by common 
historical traditions, and as far as possible by common 
language as well as by historical connexion with a 
certain territory. 

On further examination of the nature of modern 
peoples the following points must be taken into 
consideration : Each people is the result of a historical 
process in which two main factors, nature and culture, 
are perceptible. First the individuals connected by 
descent join into closer unions, which are called 
tribes, and the tribes afterwards unite into a large 
ethnical unit, that forms a people, the tribes devel- 
oping vigorously by mutual interbreeding and by 
perpetual absorption of new elements of culture. This 



process is in general the product of an assimilation 
of the two main factors: nature (descent) and culture. 
The importance of descent in this process is proved 
by the results of scientific research, different anthro- 
pological characteristics often being found in different 
peoples. But since peculiar cultural features, too, are 
part of the nature of a people, anthropolical diffe- 
rences must not be acquiesced in. Each people has 
a culture of its own and a history of its own, distin- 
guishing it from other peoples. 

But there is a third factor to be considered: To 
become a real unit, notwithstanding the right of the 
individual to move about and the influence of different 
civilizations, a people must have a firmly established 
basis, fit to secure them a firm and stable position 
in life. This substantial basis is the territory. A com- 
munity of men can only become a people, if they 
have an abode of their own, their own territory. 
Single individuals or families indeed can live outside 
the territory of their own people, but this is only 
an exception that does not affect the rule. Besides, 
such individuals and families remain in an ideal 
connexion with their national territory, and these 
ties can only be undone by their assimilation to 
another people. 

But how far does the national territory extend? 
Without an exact answer to this question the problem 
of self-determination of peoples cannot be solved. 

First of all it is quite certain that a fundamental 
distinction must be made between the territory of a 
state and the territory of a people. Seldom the terri- 
tory of a state and the territory of a people will 
coincide. State territories have frontiers settled by 



10 



constitutional law, while the frontiers of the territories 
of peoples have not yet been recognized by consti- 
tutional law. 

The essential difference between the territory of 
a people and the territory of a state is, that the 
latter is based on conquest, while the territory of a 
people is formed irrespective of conquest, not by 
arbitrary action, but by nature and civilization. Though 
in general it may be true, that the historical origin 
of all formations of peoples can be traced back to 
conquest, yet there can be no doubt, that it is not 
merely be conquest that they have become peoples 
in a modern sense of the word. Where the native 
population did not abandon their primary settlements 
and the conquerors were not able, by a definite 
process of assimilation, to transform the native 
population into a nationality common with the con- 
querors (which in earlier centuries was the case in 
Italy and in England, in modern times in America), 
conquest by foreign powers cannot forthwith involve 
annihilation of nationality to a people. 

The territory, which a people is historically con- 
nected with by perpetual settlement, is the national 
territory of a people. The notion of a national 
territory in this sense of the word, however, is of an 
exclusive nature: Never can a territory be the national 
territory of two or more peoples at the same time, 
but each people has its own separate national terri- 
tory, while in other national territories it plays the 
part of a conqueror or of a stranger. Therefore these 
peoples, who have subjected other peoples to their 
rule but have not been able to permanently settle 
in their place and to entirely assimilate them, must 



II 



not claim the territory of the conquered people as 
their own national territory. 

Hereat the following observations are to be 
made : As it is a question of accomplished perma- 
nent settlement, national territory under modern cir- 
cumstances, especially considering the great mobility 
of trade and industry, depends more on the character 
of the country population than of the town population. 
Larger towns therefore are, properly speaking, ex- 
territorial as regards nationality by the incessant influx 
of foreigners and penniless persons. Owing to modern 
commercial intercourse even landed-proprietors in 
towns cannot be compared to landed-proprietors in 
the country, estates in towns very often changing 
hands and seldom involving the residency of the 
proprietors. For the nationality of a territory, there- 
fore, the country population is more decisive than 
the population of the towns. 

On the other hand there are also within a co- 
herent national territory small foreign- national islands, 
where another nationality has its home. 

But neither by the foreign-national population 
of single towns nor by interspersed foreign-national 
islands can the character of a coherent national terri- 
tory be made doubtful. The sea does not cease to 
be the sea for the islands whicJi are in it. The enti- 
reness of the national territory must be maintained, 
because only such territories can be considered as 
separate units, based on constitutional law. 

Only national territories in this sense of the term 
can form political organisms of their own. Single 
towns or islands cannot be torn out of the organism 
and incorporated into other national states. The 



12 



territory principle can only be applied to national 
territories in the above sense. 

So the national territory is identical with the 
coherent ethnographical territory of a people, 
including also single foreign-national places on islands. 
It is based on the ethnographical principle. 

Concerning self-determination of the peoples we 
come to the conclusion, that peoples can lay claim 
to an existence as independent states only on their 
national territory, established on the ethnographical 
principle. To this is opposed the so-called historical 
principle, which aims at granting their former state- 
territories to peoples, who in former historical periods 
united also foreign nations in their political organism, 
including the territories of foreign nations. (As for 
instance the Poles lay claim to the re-creation of the 
old Polish Empire from the Baltic to the Black Sea, 
with annexation of Lithuanian, White Russian and 
Ukrainian territories.) This principle is utterly incon- 
sistent with the idea of self-determination of peoples, 
since to some peoples it grants the privilege of ruling 
over others, while it excludes others from self-deter- 
mination on their own national territories. (Justly, 
therefore, President Wilson's formula apportions to 
the Poles the undoubtedly Polish territories, i. e. the 
territories- ethnographically belonging to Poland). 

If, therefore, the Peace Conference wishes a just 
solution of the national problem, if they will solve it 
thoroughly conform with the proper meaning of the 
victory gained by the peoples of Europe and America, 
they must, on creating new national states and esta- 
blishing their frontiers, have regard only for the 
national territories of the peoples and in doing so 



13 



make valid the pure ethnographical principle in the 
above sense. By the ethnographical principle all 
annexations by foreign peoples are undone, and thus 
it is decided for the future, that no people is justified 
in enriching itself at another people's expense, and 
that no people must strive for the territory of another 
people. 

So much of the delimitation of the frontiers of 
new national states. But it must be observed that the 
peoples ought to be at liberty to unite with other 
peoples and to establish common political organisms 
with them (Such is the case at present in Belgium 
and Switzerland, and for the future the Slovenes, 
Croats and Servians wish to form a joint Yugoslav 
state). But it will not do to refuse those people, who 
wish to form independent states on their own national 
territories, the right of establishing them. Such pro- 
cedure would be entirely inconsistent with the idea 
of self-determination. 

But since, as was said before, there will actually 
never be any territory, that is inhabited by only one 
people, also those peoples, who live on the territory 
of a foreign nation, must be offered the opportunity 
of making the most of self-determination. In this case 
the minority nations must indeed, as aforesaid, sub- 
ordinate themselves to the territorial sovereignty of 
the majority people on its national territory, but what 
is not essential to territorial sovereignty, must be left 
to the free determination of the minority peoples. The 
self-determination of national minorities on the ter- 
ritory of a foreign nation is limited only by the 
principle, that it is not allowed to be at variance 
with the self-determination of the majority people 



14 



domiciled on that territory, and that they have to 
submit to anything that may result from territorial 
union. 

Speaking in the terms of political science, peoples 
on their own national territory are entitled to the 
establishment of national states of their own, with all 
the consequences resulting from a national state, by 
virtue of the territory principle; those peoples, 
however, who live on the national territory of a 
foreign people as individuals or larger groups in the 
places or interspersed 'islands', are entitled to self- 
determination by virtue of the personality principle, 
to an extent which results from the same. 



15 



II. The Ukrainian Nation. 

Among the European peoples, striving for self- 
determination as the necessary consequence of the 
Great War, is the Ukrainian people, not, indeed, 
one of the "small nations", which the Allied Powers 
have taken under their protection since the beginning 
of the war, but a great people of 40 million, who 
in their time had sacrificed very much for European 
civilization as a safeguard against the Mongols, 
Turks, and Tartars, but had already lost their inde- 
pendence in previous centuries. 

Till the present day the Ukrainian people re- 
mained under foreign rule, doomed by the Russians 
and Poles to annihilation of their nationality, and 
forgotten by the rest of the world. 

But suppression could not annihilate the living 
soul of the great people, and its dismemberment 
among several hostile communities could not weaken 
the idea of national union. Though excluded from 
the European Concert, the Ukrainian people, in South 
Russia as well as in Poland, and after the partition 
of Poland on the territories of the Austro-Hungarian 
•Monarchy, never ceased to strive for the attainment 
of political autonomy and national independence. When 



16 



the Great War brought the triumph of the ideas of 
democracy, the Ukrainian people, too, applied for the 
participation in the European community of nations. 
Everybody knows that the Ukrainian troops were 
the first to proclaim the revolution in Petrograd. It 
is in a large measure due to the Ukrainians, that the 
Russian revolution proclaimed self-determination of 
the peoples, which the Allied Powers afterwards made 
their own device. 

It is this great Slav people that those, who ruled 
it till the present day, want to deprive of the right 
of participating in self-determination. 

But the Ukrainian nation actually exists, and 
has all the properties necessary for the existence of 
a political organism. 

But as the political and national enemies of the 
Ukrainian people, especially the most influential po- 
litical circles among the Russians and the Poles, are 
incessantly spreading false and designedly fictitious 
information about the world concerning the Ukrainian 
people, and do not shrink from the basest means of 
calumny, to enrich themselves on the expense of this 
people, abundantly blessed with natural resources, 
it is necessary sine ira et studio to state the true 
facts about Ukraina and the Ukrainian people, and 
to furnish proof, that the latter is indeed a nation 
in the modern sense of the word, and that according 
to the parole of "right and justice" it is to be granted 
self-determination on its whole national territory. At 
the same time it shall be demonstrated, how much 
it will be to the interest of the Allied Powers and 
mankind in general, if the Peace Conference will help' 
Ukraina to political independence. 



17 

If in Europe and in America, before the War, so 
little was known about the Ukrainian people, it must 
be attributed to te fact, that both peoples, who ruled 
the Ukrainians, wanted to persuade the world, that 
there were no Ukrainians, only Poles and Russians, 
and that the Ukrainians formed only an individual 
tribe of the Polish or the Russian nation. 

As for the Poles, in the first place, in all their 
political endeavours they always thought of the re- 
establishment of the old Polish empire from the Baltic 
to the Black Sea. So in all geographical records of 
Polish scholars we always find the notion of the 
former Polish empire in its largest dimensions, i. e. 
including the Lithuanian, White Russian, and Ukrai- 
nian territories. When in the nineteenth century with 
the rise of the idea of nationalism it became ne- 
cessary to pay heed to national differences, and the 
Ukrainians asserted their national rights, the Polish 
politicians at once defined their position regarding 
them, declaring that the Ukrainians from the San to 
the Dniepr formed only a part of the Polish nation, 
that their language was only a country dialect of the 
Polish language, and only their creed and some of 
their manners and customs were different from the 
Polish. Especially to those Ukrainians, who lived on 
the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 
they disputed the right of appearing as an inde- 
pendent people, and of asserting their national identity 
with the Ukrainians living in Russia : moreover, re- 
ferring to the name of "Ruthenians" customary in 
Austria, they alleged, that the "Ruthenians" were in- 
vented in 1848 by Count Stadion, and they used 
all possible means to persuade the world, that the 



so-called "Ruthenians" were no separate people and 
had nothing in common with the Ukrainians living 
in Russia under the name of "Little Russians". 

Against this assertion it must here already be 
observed, that the name of "Ruthenians" is derived 
from "Rusj", the original name of the ancient Ukrai- 
nian State of Kieff, and by its very etymology proves 
the connexion of the Austrian "Ruthenians" with the 
Ukrainians living in Russia (for further particulars see 
third chapter). On the other hand the description of 
the Polish politicians meets with the opposition of 
the Russian policy, which also lays claim to the 
Ukrainians, and under the official name of "Little 
Russians" describes them all as forming an integrant 
part of the Russian nation. To Russian imperalism 
all Ukrainians, hence also those, who had ever lived 
under Polish rule, appear as Russians and the 
Ukrainian language as a Russian dialect. 

The Polish theory, which counted the part of 
the Ukrainian people, that formerly was under Polish 
rule, among the Polish nation, had the only effect, 
that many Ukrainian noblemen as well as Ukrainians 
belonging to the middle classes and Ukrainian mer- 
chants adopted Polish civilization and attached them- 
selves to the Poles. But the masses of the Ukrainian 
nation remained faithful to their national traditions, 
took part in the national rebellions of former cen- 
turies against Polish hegemony, and maintained their 
national independence against all Polonizing ten- 
dencies. When after the partition of Poland East 
Galicia came to Austria, a political struggle arose 
between the Poles and the Ukrainians on the territory 
of the Austrian constitution, at the bottom of which 



10 



was the idea of emancipation of the Ukrainian people 
from Polish hegemony. Although those in power in 
Austria delivered up the Ukrainians to the discretion 
of the Poles, the Ukrainians used the small fragments 
of liberty to make East Galicia and North Bukowina 
a national Piedmont for the whole Ukrainian people, 
and, in spite of the Russian cordon, to cultivate the 
ideal community of interests with their brothers of 
Ukraina. 

Much more dangerous for the Ukrainians was' 
the Russian unitarian theory, which was first upheld 
by the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. Under his rule 
Ukraina lost her separate position and was incorpo- 
rated in the Muscovite State of the Tsar. (For particulars 
see III. chapter). By him the name of "Rossia" and 
the "theory of the union of the Russian nation" were 
introduced. According to this theory the Russian 
nation consists of three tribes : Great Russians, Little 
Russians, and White Russians, whose idioms arc 
supposed to differ no more from each other than 
dialects of one language. Since that time the Ukrai- 
nians are officially styled only as "Little Russians". 
(Not till half a century after the Union between the 
Muscovite state and Ukraina the idea struck Peter 
the Great, that the Ukrainians belonged to the same 
nation as the Muscovites.) Official Russia declares 
urbl et orbi that all these tribes are connected by a 
common, i. e. the Russian, literary language, by race. 
customs and tradition. The Ukrainian literature is not 
recognized, the Ukrainian history is curtailed and made 
an essential part of the Russian history. Hand in 
hand with this conception goes the ruthless repres- 
sion and persecution of every manifestation of the 

2« 



20 



independence of the Ukrainian people: the use of 
the Ukrainian language in literature is prohibited and 
not even in elementary schools the Ukrainian lan- 
guage is allowed. Yet the Ukrainian peasant remains 
faithful to his national language and is very strongly 
conscious of his national independence against every 
Russian. Marriages between Ukrainian peasants and 
Russians wellnigh never take place and the Ukrainian 
peasants seclude themselves almost entirely from the 
Russians. 

For all these reasons, and owing to the circum- 
stance that into the Ukrainian territory official Russia 
deliberately sent Russian officials, dislocated Russian 
troops, and provided for the admittance into the 
Ukrainian industrial centres (Kieff, Kharkoff, Odessa) 
of Russian workmen, the impression forced itself 
upon any foreign traveller before the War, that on all 
Ukrainian territories (i. e. in South Russia) there lived 
only one, the Russian, nation. The great political 
importance, which before the War Russia had in 
Europe, effected that the world of science and lite- 
rature adopted the Russian unitarian theory in the 
History, Geography, and Statistics of Eastern Europe 
without further investigation, and the consequence 
was, that official European political science before the 
War did not know, that there is a large country in 
Europe, called Ukraina, and that in this country there 
lives a separate nation, called the Ukrainians, who 
have their own history and are leading their own 
national life. 

But the great War forthwith brought the enligh- 
tenment. Among the first peoples to come forward 
after the proclamation by the Russian revolution of 



21 



the principle of self-determination of peoples was the 
Ukrainian people; to those, who iurabant in verba 
magistri. a sudden surprise, to others, however, who 
knew the prevarications of Tsaristic theories only the 
natural development of things. 

But it must really not be concealed from any 
scholar, that the Ukrainian is an old people and 
that the roots of the development of the Ukrainian 
nation are to be found as early in the middle ages 
as those of the English, French and German nations. 
The only essential difference is that, while the course 
of development of the great European , nations was 
continual and uninterrupted, the development of the 
Ukrainian nation was slackened by the immediate 
vicinity of Mongols, Tartars and Turks, and was 
greatly interrupted by foreign suppression. But the 
preliminary conditions necessary for the existence of 
a nation are no less to be found with the Ukrainian 
nation than with other European nations. But one 
has to look truth openly in the face and not to be 
mislead by deliberate prevarications. 

This refers above all to the two main-factors 
of each nation: nature and culture (see chapter [.). 

Taking into consideration that peoples come 
into existence by the interbreeding of different tribes 
as well as by the influence of different spheres of 
civilization, no constant anthropological properties, 
indeed, can be agreed upon to be characteristic of 
all those who belong to a certain people. But when- 
ever interbreeding does not often take place and the 
influence of foreign civilization is not great, certain 
anthropological types spring up, which distinguish 
this people on the average from other peoples. So 



22 



with the peoples of Eastern Europe anthropological 
properties can be observed with greater reliableness 
than with those of Central or Western Europe, where 
cross-breeding is much more complicated, and the 
influence of world-civilization is much greater. It is 
obvious, however, that where there are considerable 
anthropological differences between large groups of 
men, if only on the average, those differences are 
proof, that the groups of men concerned differ also 
from each other as regards their nationality. 

Now anthropological research has proved the 
following differences between the Ukrainians on one 
hand, and the Poles and Russians on the other: 

The average height of the Ukrainians amounts to 
1670 mm, of the Poles 1654, of the Russians 1657. 
The average width round the chest comes to 5504 per 
cent of the size of the body with the Ukrainians, 55il 
per cent with the Poles, and 52i8 per cent with the Rus- 
sians. As regards the shape of the skull there is also a 
remarkable difference: the average cranial index is 
83'2 with the Ukrainians, with the Poles only 82' 1, 
and with the Russians 82'3. A great difference is to 
be observed in the facial angle, viz. 78'1 with the 
Ukrainians, 76'3 with the Poles, 76 - 7 with the 
Russians. 

So it is certain that the anthropological type of 
the Ukrainians differs essentially from the Russian 
and Polish types. This difference as early as in the 
eighties of the last century drew the attention of the 
famous geographer Reclus, who noticed a closer 
kinship of the Ukrainians with the Southern Slavs. 

As regards historical descent, too, the Ukrainians 
differ from the Poles and the Russians. While the 



23 



Poles descended from the Western Slav tribes, the 
Ukrainians and the Russians branched off from the 
Eastern Slavs, the Ukrainians from their Southern 
group, the Russians from the Northern one. The 
Ukrainians may be traced back to the Polans, Derev- 
lans, Siverians, Ulitches and Dulibes, the Russians 
to the Radimitches and Viyatitches. Besides, the in- 
fluence of Finnish tribes plays an important part 
with the Russians, which is not the case at all with 
the Ukrainians. According to Deniker's theory the 
Ukrainians (as well as the Southern Slavs) belong 
to the so-called Adriatic (Dinaric) race, while the 
Poles are to be counted among the Vistula race and 
the Russians among the Oriental race. 

But not only as regards descent the Ukrainians 
differ from the Poles and Russians, but they have 
also a peculiar national culture ot their own, distinct 
from both these peoples. The Ukrainian culture is 
of an older date than the Polish and Russian cultures, 
in the same measure as the history of the Ukrainian 
people begins considerably earlier than the history 
of the Polish and Russian peoples. 

As the most important attribute of a peculiar 
national culture appears, as a rule, a peculiar lan- 
guage. Yet this is not a necessary condition of na- 
tionality. There are individuals and there can be 
larger groups of men, who are compelled by external 
or other circumstances, or willing of their own accord, 
to use another language in their every day life, without 
by doing so losing their inherited nationality. A people 
as a whole has generally a language of its own ; 
but this is a peculiar matter, considering that two 
peoples can have the same language as their national 



24 



tongue (English and Americans, to a certain degree 
Servians and Croats), while on the other hand endea- 
vours are not wanting to create a political national 
union notwithstanding the difference of languages 
(Yugoslavs). Still it is of greatest importance for a 
nation, if they can plead, that they have a uniform 
national language. 

Official Russia never recognized the Ukrainian 
language, but only let it pass as the "Little Russian 
dialect" of the Russian language. Even granting this 
assertion to be true, it would not be a sufficient 
reason for contesting the Ukrainian people's claim 
to national individuality, considering that a peculiar 
national language is no necessary property of the 
notion of people, and that there are actually languages 
of different peoples, differing less from each other 
than dialects of one language. But this official theory 
is decidedly false. The Ukrainians have a national 
language of their own, distinct from the Russian and 
Polish languages. Setting aside the views of some 
politically tainted philologists (such as Florinskyj and 
others), the general opinion of Slav philologists is, 
that the Ukrainian language has no nearer affinity 
with the Russian or Polish languages than, for in- 
stance, the Polish with the Czech, or the Servian 
with the Bulgarian. A final decision was given by 
the Petrograd Academy of Science in their expert 
opinion of 1905, that the Russian and Ukrainian 
languages are two independent languages of equal 
rank. According to latest philological research (Prof. 
Stocky j -Gartner) the language most closely 
connected with the Ukrainian is the Servian and 
Croat language. 



25 



The Ukrainian people lias also a literature of 
its own, the beginnings of which are of an earlier 
date than Of the Polish or Russian literatures. The 
thousand years of the history of the Ukrainian lite- 
rature begin as early as the tenth century, at the 
time of the greatest prosperity of the Empire of Kieff. 

It is true that all masterworks of Ukrainian 
literature of the earliest period of Ukrainian history 
are claimed by the Russians as being their own, but 
this conception is based on the Russian "unitarian 
theory" mentioned above, and is supported by the 
false statement, that the early Empire of Kieff was 
Russian in its origin (see chapter III.). Among these 
masterworks of Ukrainian literature are to be counted 
the Chronicle of Nestor, the Galician -Volhynian 
Chronicle, the noble historical epic "Slowo o polku 
Ihorewi" and many others besides. The language of 
these masterworks is chiefly Old Slavonic, but as 
early as the eleventh century it shows an ample ad- 
mixture of Early Ukrainian elements and a considerable 
linguistic difference from the literary documents 
written on the Muscovite territory at the same period. 

The Ukrainian literature of the early Empire of 
Kieff reflected the character of a mighty state. With 
the decay of the Empire of Kieff (in the thirteenth 
century) also the Ukrainian literature decayed. Half 
a thousand years of Tartars' wars and the oppression 
by foreign states have drained the life of Ukrainian 
literature. But the five centuries of decay of the 
Ukrainian literature are at the same time a period 
of the greatest development of oral popular poetry, 
which, risen neither on Polish nor on Russian 
territory, was a peculiar feature, a characteristic 



26 



production of the oppressed Ukrainian people. At 
the end of the eighteenth century written Ukrainian 
literature reappeared. The Ukrainian vernacular lan- 
guage revived in works of national literature and in 
the course of the nineteenth century the Ukrainian 
literature fully developped itself. National poets, such 
as Shewtchenko, Fedjkovytch, Frank o, 
Stefanyk, Kociubynskyj&c. are among those 
who would be an ornament to the greatest literatures 
of the world. But it is still more important to point 
out, that it is not only by being written in the 
Ukrainian vernacular language that the Ukrainian 
literature differs from the Russian and Polish, but 
that in its character it bears a peculiar stamp, foreign 
to the Polish and Russian literatures. While the latter 
are literatures of lordly peoples, accustomed to rule 
and command, and even after the partition of Poland 
thinking of nothing but the restitution of their former 
sway, the Ukrainian is the literature of an oppressed 
people, living in distress and striving for freedom. 
In all spheres of learning, too, brisk activity 
is shown by the Ukrainian people about the second 
half of the nineteenth century. The Ukrainian people 
had long ago to boast of scientific research by 
eminent scholars, written in their national lan- 
guage, and is now able to refer to a bulky scientific 
literature as well as to a selection of eminent learned 
works of the two learned societies of Lemberg and 
Kieff, organized on the model of European academies 
of science. The learned society at Kieff has recently 
been given the rank of an Academy of Science. By 
all these works the Ukrainian language has proved, 
that like any other civilized language it is qualified 



27 



for the discussion and solution of the most com- 
plicated problems of science and learning. 

On examining the further cultural phenomena 
of the Ukrainian people we get about the following 
picture : 

In the old Ukrainian state, which commenced 
with the foundation of the Empire of Kieff in the 
9 th century (see chapter III.), civilization was very 
high. It was from the vast treasures of it that 'the 
Muscovite state drew later on, and Russia, united 
under Peter the Great, ows its cultural position to a 
large extent to Ukrainian civilization. The high level 
of civilization of the Ukrainian people at that time 
is best proved by the compilation of Ukrainian custo- 
mary law of the eleventh century, the so-called 
"Prawda Ruska". Though the early Empire of Kieff 
stood under the strong influence of Byzantium, capital 
punishment was abolished in Ukraina as early as 
the 10" 1 century, while corporal punishment was 
almost unknown. The compilation of law, mentioned 
above, already distinguishes crimes committed with 
malice aforethought from crimes by passion. For indi- 
viduality ample allowance was made. In civil law 
the wife enjoyed almost the same rights as her hus- 
band, after whose death she by rights took the guar- 
dianship of her children. The prince was the supreme 
leader of the army. He was supported by a Council 
of Boyars. On the prince and the boyars the people 
sat in judgment. The election of the prince, if there 
was no immediate right of succession, and the de- 
cision about war or peace appertained to the assembly 
of the people, which was called "Vitche". If the 
assembly refused their consent to war, the prince 



28 



was nevertheless at liberty to take the field, but only 
with his followers and the volunteers. In the "Vitche" 
any citizen of age had a vote, but the son refrained 
from voting in the presence of his father. 

At that time the Ukrainians were for the most 
part a trading people, which kept up a lively traffic 
with all civilized peoples of Europe. Thanks to these 
relations the Ukrainian countries very early attained 
to a high degree of civilization. As early as the be- 
ginning of the eleventh century public schools were 
founded and several libraries existed. The princes 
were persons of refined education. Prince Wsewolod 
of the eleventh century is said to have spoken five 
languages. An abundance of documents of civilization 
arose in the seclusion of the monasteries of that 
time. To the great number of accomplished men 
among the educated lay classes numerous precious 
documents and works bear eloquent witness. 

The Boyars formed the nobility of that time. 
The Ukrainian citizens enjoyed very high esteem. 
As regards economy the Empire of Kieff was one of 
the mightiest of its age. The towns formed the founda- 
tion of the cultural, political and social development 
of the Ukrainian people, and commercial as well as 
other trading interests gave their stamp to the policy 
of the Empire of Kieff. Commerce was the vital nerve 
of Ukrainian political life. At the wealth of Kieff, 
the capital of the Empire, foreigners marvelled. The 
peasantry, too, were wealthy: they were free and 
enjoyed the same rights as the other classes of society. 

But this whole civilization ceased, when Poland, 
and afterwards Russia, ruled the Ukrainian territory. 
First of all the Polish government brought about the 



29 



entire ruin of the Ukrainian middle-classes by para- 
lyzing trade. Ukrainawas exposed to incessant attacks 
of wild nomadic tribes, and as Poland refused to 
protect them against these incursions, trade with the 
South and East ceased almost entirely. Also the 
business-relations of Ukraina with the West were 
cut off altogether, the Poles forbidding the passage 
to Ukraina to foreign merchants. Nor could inland 
trade develop under Polish rule, as the Polish nobility 
introduced vere heavy tolls and inland customs on 
Ukrainian territory, which had the effect of stifling 
any traffic. Besides, the Poles began to colonize the 
Ukrainian towns with foreign colonists. First Polish 
colonists were called in. But when it appeared that 
in their business qualities they were no match to 
the Ukrainians: Germans, Armenians and Jews were 
employed for the purpose. But when these methods, 
too, could not entirely suppress Ukrainian trade, the 
Polish government resorted to reprisals and exceptional 
measures. Ukrainian merchants and tradesmen were 
expelled from the guilds, they were forbidden to 
keep workshops and to offer their goods for sale 
in towns and on fairs. The Ukrainian citizens were 
not allowed to buy houses in the towns. Besides, 
Ukrainian tradesmen were forced to pay special taxes 
and duties. The contributions, necessary for keeping 
the army of invasion, were likewise used to ruin the 
Ukrainian middle-classes. At last the Ukrainian middle- 
classes were expelled from council and office in 
towns and forbidden to send their children to public 
schools. With the Ukrainian middle-classes trade and 
commerce decayed. But Poland was not able to put 
Polish trade on the place of the crushed Ukrainian trade. 



30 



The Ukrainian nobility, too, was extirpated by 
the rule of the Poles. After the union of the Ukrai- 
nian territories with Poland the endeavour of Polish 
policy was to force the idea of a Polish state upon 
the Ukrainian countries. At first it was not easy for 
the Poles to prevail upon the Ukrainian nobility to 
comply with their policy. Only a few boyar-families, 
allured and demoralized by the gay and easy life of 
the Polish szlachta, attached themselves to them, left 
their church and their people in the course of time, 
and turned Roman-Catholic and Polish. A large part 
of the Ukrainian nobility, however, was Polonized 
only by force and vexation. The Polish kings partly 
dispossessed the Ukrainian nobles under the flim- 
siest pretexts, to confiscate their property, partly they 
illegally gave away the property of Ukrainian nobles 
to the Polish szlachta, who attacked them by force 
of arms and turned them out of their inherited estates. 
The fugitives often applied for assistance to the 
Tartars, but by doing so occasioned the intervention 
of the Polish government with the Tartars, who for 
a high tribute, paid to them by the Poles, pledged 
themselves to the latter, to hunt for, and plunder, the 
Ukrainian nobility. The property of the killed or 
arrested nobles was confiscated for the estates of 
the crown. This policy of extirpation towards the 
Ukrainian nobility drove a large part of them into 
the Russian camp : many of them took refuge behind 
the supremacy of Russia. 

In Ukraina at first the clergy had the highest 
education and influence. But the Ukrainian clergy, 
too, had to fall a victim to the despotism of the 
Polish nobility. In the beginning the right of filling 



31 



up vacancies in the bishoprics and clerical livings 
of Ukraina was in the hands of the Ukrainian people ; 
after the union of Ukraina with Poland the Polish 
kings laid claim to this right for themselves. 

Dissolute fellows without any theological edu- 
cation, who sometimes did not even know the mean- 
ing of the word of 'bishop', were appointed heads 
of the Ukrainian clerical hierarchy. As archimandrits 
in Ukrainian monasteries Polish noblemen appear 
under Polish rule, who only economically exploited 
the monasteries, and did their best to expose the 
Greek rites to ridicule and contempt. The Ukrainian 
lower clergy was systematically depressed as regards 
their cultural, economical, and social position, and 
reduced to beggary, the churches and convents were 
deprived of their property. Thus, among others, the 
large estates, with which the Ukrainian princes and 
boyars had endowed the bishoprics and convents of 
St. Basil in Ukraina, were confiscated for the benefit 
of the estates of the crown and the private property 
of the Polish nobility, or used for the endowment 
of Polish bishoprics, Polish clerical livings, and Jesuit 
colleges. Numerous churches were taken from the 
Ukrainians by force and given to the Poles, nay, 
sold to the Jews. The Roman Catholic priests often 
rushed upon the Ukrainian parsons in their resi- 
dences, beat them, and collected the compulsory 
tithes by force. The Ukrainian clergy (especially in 
the seventeenth century) very often makes complaint 
that the squires came upon them and forced them to 
drudgery and corvee with teams, which the clergy 
was not liable to. It is true that in 1669 in the Polish 
Diet the Ukrainian clergy was declared free from 



32 



serfdom and statute labour on the manorial estates, 
but this law was ignored as usual. By these perse- 
cutions the Ukrainian bishops and the lower clergy 
were reduced to such a degree of poverty, that a 
higher education and theological studies were not to 
be thought of. The consequence was, that, according 
to the reports of Polish historians, many Ukrainian 
churches were leased to Jews. Thus in a memorial of 
the thime of Sigismund III it says : "The jew took the 
keys of the church and got a payment from each 
performance relating to divine service." No wonder, 
then, that such oppression drove the Ukrainian people 
to despair and was one of the reasons, why under 
the hetman Bohdan Chmelnyckyj the whole 
Ukrainian people rose to shake off the Polish yoke. 
Lastly, concerning the Ukrainian peasantry, the 
Polish nobility did not think of extirpating them, 
but they endeavoured to enslave them, to make them 
a part of the inventory, to dispose of them arbi- 
trarily at their discretion. First the peasant was de- 
prived of all civil rights which he had enjoyed in 
Ukraina, and afterwards he was deprived of all human 
rights, too. Everything belonged to the Polish squire. 
Not only the ground, which the peasant tilled, and 
the cottage he lived in, not only his cattle and his 
house-hold utensils and furniture, but also himself 
and his whole family. As to how the Polish squire 
used his rights, the Polish writer Starowolski 
says the followings words among others: "With us 
there is freedom for everyone to do as he pleases. 
The consequence thereof is that the weak become the 
slaves of the strong and rich. In Poland one is allowed 
to do anything. Asiatic despots do not torment so 



.:: 



many men to death during their life-time, as it is the 
case in one year in the free Polish Republic". Even 
the famous Polish preacher Skarga, who is known 
as an opponent of the Ukrainian people, says: "On 
the whole globe no empire can be found, where the 
peasantry has to suffer such a treatment as in Poland. 
Large landowners and Captains-General of the coun- 
ties not only strip the peasant of everything, but also 
kill him, when and where they like, without even 
hearing a bad word for it". Special renown as an 
executioner of Ukrainian peasants was gained by the 
Polish prince Jeremias Wisnowiecki, whom Polish 
writers relate to have murdered the peasants, to have 
had them beheaded, impaled, and their eyes put out 
with an anger. 

No wonder then, that the formerly flourishing 
Ukrainian civilization decayed and could not fit itself 
to the requirements of the constant progress of 
Western civilization. Nevertheless the Ukrainians kept 
the original mental civilization of their people in its 
originality to the present day. This peculiar civiliza- 
tion of the broad masses of tiie population very 
distinctly separates the Ukrainian people from other 
peoples. 

The peculiarity of the Ukrainian people shows 
itself already in their family-life. The head of the 
family exercises no absolute power over the other 
members of the family. Likewise the position of 
women is considerably higher with the Ukrainian 
people than with the Russians or Poles. With the 
Ukrainians a daughter is never married off against 
her will. Grown-up sons receive a house and soil 
from their fathers immediately on being married. With 

3 



34 



the Russians the father has to decide about the 
marriage of his daughter, he is the head of the 
collective family, over which he exercises his absolute 
authority. This is impossible with the Ukrainians. 

With the Ukrainians the inclination for free asso- 
ciations is very great. The associations are based 
on perfect equality of work as well as of profit. 
A foreman is chosen, his commands are obeyed, but 
he only gets an equal share in the profit, and works 
together with the rest. With the Russians the boishak 
chooses his workmen himself, he does not work, and 
yet gets the largest share in the profit. The aptitude 
of the Poles for associations is very small. 

The Ukrainian community is a voluntary union 
of free men for the purpose of security, and promotion 
of the good of the commonwealth. Beyond this the 
individual will is respected and the members of the 
community must not, on principle, be confined in 
their private sphere of action. The principle of perfect 
freedom of the individual and of the sanctity of pri- 
vate property is in power. The "common landed 
property" which after Russian model the Russians 
have instituted in some places of the left side of 
Ukraina, is repugnant to the nature of the Ukrainian 
people, and the people openly protests against this 
institution. Still more repugnant to the inner mind of 
the Ukrainian nation is the Russian "Mir", which under 
the pretence of a communist republic subdues the 
free will of the individual, all the more since the 
manner of thinking of the Ukrainian peasant is based 
on the sacredness of his private property and on 
true personal freedom. Hence it is only under the 
influence of force and of all measures, which aim at 



::. 



the extirpation of the abuses of capitalism and the 
hitherto existing order, that Russian bolshevism could 
gain prevalence here and there in Ukraina, owing to 
the present misconstruction of its nature. But this 
influence is sure to cease, as soon as the violent 
measures of bolshevism will cease, since bolshevism, 
which has sprung from the inner mind of the Russian 
people, can not be reconciled with the Ukrainians, 
way of thinking at all (see chapter III.). 

The Ukrainian peasant's forms of social inter- 
course are quite different from the rude manners of 
the Polish or Russian peasant. Great delicacy of 
feeling, courtesy and civility towards other people, 
and disinterested hospitality, are the chief features 
of the Ukrainian peasant's etiquette. 

But the world of Ukrainian civilization appears 
in its highest perfection in the oral popular literature. 
The philosophical mind of the Ukrainian people 
finds its expression in an almost countless number 
of proverbs, parables &c, the like of which we 
hardly find with the most civilized European nations. 
The highest degree of perfection is attained by 
Ukrainian popular poetry. Neither Russian nor Polish 
popular poetry can be compared to Ukrainian poetry 
concerning their poetical qualities. In Ukrainian 
poetry there is a large feeling, a lively appreciation 
for nature, everywhere we find the glorification of 
the highest and purest feelings of the human soul. 
In love songs no trace of sexualism can be found, 
not the bodily beauty of woman, but her moral 
beauty are glorified in Ukrainian popular poetry, 
everywhere with full perfection of form, and harmony 
between form and subject. Russian popular poetry 

3* 



36 



is much poorer and entirely different. Polish popular 
poetry is insignificant. 

Hand in hand with Ukrainian popular poetry 
goes the Ukrainian popular song and the Ukrainian 
popular art. The scholar cannot fail to notice the 
essential differences between Ukrainian popular songs 
on one hand and Polish or Russian popular songs 
on the other. The Ukrainian popular song is un- 
doubtedly among the finest of the globe. In their 
music the whole character of the Ukrainian soul is 
expressed, hence to an Ukrainian musician it is no 
mystery, why the music of the ingenious composer 
Tschajkowsky differs so much from the music 
of the other Russian composers, since Tschajkowsky 
is of Ukrainian extraction, be it ever so often assured 
that he called himself a Russian. The Ukrainian 
popular art, too, is entirely original and of a higher 
perfection than with the Poles or Russians. Wood- 
carving with the Huculs has attained to a high degree 
of artistic development. But the highest prize must 
be awarded to Ukrainian ornamentation. In embroi- 
deries, tissues and beads-needlework we see a blending 
of colours so aesthetic, that though each colour is 
gaudy in itself, the effect of the whole is harmonious, 
and artistic. Russian ornamentation is much lower in 
value, of a different character, and based on different 
principles. Polish popular ornamentation is much 
inferior to Ukrainian, where it is not merely an 
imitation of it. 

This short statement proves that Ukrainian 
civilization has indeed all preliminary conditions, 
which are indispensable for an independent nation. 
It must only be given the possibility, by being 



37 



admitted into the community of other nations, once 
more to attain to that level, which, in comparison 
with European civilization of that time, it had attained 
once in its historical development. For this purpose 
the Ukrainian people must get back its political 
independence which it had at that time. 

That it is worthy of such independence will be 
shown by the further arguments. (Chapters III— V.) 



39 



III. The Ukrainian History. 

Though the Ukrainian people was for several 
centuries of its history under Polish and Russian rule, 
there can be no doubt, that the Ukrainians have a 
history of their own, and that their historical traditions 
are of a type entirely different from those of the 
Poles or Russians. 

Long before the beginning of the Polish and 
Muscovite states the Southern group of the Eastern 
Slav tribes founded the State of Kieff, the first state- 
formation of the people, that to-day is known under 
the name of "Ukrainians". Originally the State of 
Kieff, the foundation of which took place at the 
beginning of the 9 th century, had the name of "Rusj", 
to which in the Latin . chronicles corresponds the 
appellation of "Ruthenia". This is the origin of the 
name of "Rutheni", which was first applied to the 
population of the State of Kieff as early as the 
10 th century. The appellation of "Ukrainia" appears 
for the first time in the 12 th century, and at that time 
already comprehends all the territories on which the 
Ukrainian people was settled. But it is only since 
the 17 th century that this appellation was generally 
used, especially since the revolt of the whole Ukrai- 
nian people under the Hctman Chmelnyckyj, a change 



40 



of names which is not isolated in history (cf. Rumania, 
that formerly was called Moldavia and Wallachia 
respectively). Only in the Western parts of Ukraina, 
especially in Galicia, Bukowina and in North Hungary, 
the original appellation of "Rutheni" still remained 
in use for a long time, but had to give way to the 
common name of "Ukrainians" in the last decades 
before theWar after the new rise of Ukrainian civilization. 

The Russians wrongly claim the foundation of 
the state of Kieff to themselves, as the cradle of the 
Russian people. The later Russian Empire did not 
originate in the State of Kieff but in the principality 
of Suzdal, North East of Moscow. This was not 
founded before the twelfth century, and in its foun- 
dation other peoples took part than in ihe formation 
of the Empire of Kieff: There were the Radimitches 
and Vijatitches, who belong to the Northern group 
of the Eastern Slav tribes, besides the Finns, who 
are not of Slav descent. The Russians are not a 
purely Slav race, but a blending of Slav blood with Finn. 

That the old State of Kieff was not the work of 
the Russian, but of another people, whose descendants 
are called Ukrainians, is proved by the fact that the 
literary documents of that period show Ukrainian 
linguistic features, and besides by the fact, that the 
constitution of that time, in spite of the authority of 
the prince, shows a democratic stamp, which is a 
characteristic feature of the Ukrainian nationality. The 
position of the popular assembly, called "Vitche" 
(see Chapter II.), is a phenomenon not only without 
a parallel in the history of that time, but utterly in- 
consistent with Russian or Polish constitutions at 
any time. 



■11 



The period of the princes of Kieff was, moreover, 
of great importance for Ukrainian history, because 
in its bloom, i. e. under the grand-prince Volodymyr 
the Great (980 1015) and under his immediate suc- 
cessors, the whole Ukrainian people was united under 
the sceptre of the grand-princes, and with its national 
civilization predominated over Eastern Europe of that 
time. Especially the whole country, which at present 
is known under the geographical name of EastGalicia, 
formed an integrant part of the Empire of Kieff, and 
when afterwards the latter was divided into several 
principalities, East Galicia for a long time still re- 
mained in a close alliance with the Empire of Kieff. 
Nay, what is still more, when the former Empire of 
Kieff by being divided into several principalities was 
considerably weakened, so that it was not able any 
longer to resist the wild hordes of the Mongols in 
the thirteenth century, the traditions of the State of 
Kieff passed on the principality (soon afterwards the 
kingdom) of Halitch in the Ukrainian territories of 
East Galicia and North Hungary (the name of Galicia 
comes from Halitch). While in East Ukraina the Mon- 
gols devastated the country and, little by little, the in- 
fluence of the new Muscovite Empire made itself 
felt, the kingdom of Halitch remained a powerful 
state, which however could not last more than one 
century. It could not resist the Tartars, on one hand, 
and the Poles and Lithuanians on the other. After 
the dying out of the dynasty of Halitch the kingdom 
fell to Poland in 1340; the rest of the Ukrainian 
territory (Volhynia and Kieff) was taken possession 
of by Lithuania. So the first state-formation of the 
Ukrainian people perished. 



42 



In Lithuania the higher civilization of the Ukrai- 
nian element at first gained preponderance. The 
Ukrainian language predominated at the court of the 
Lithuanian princes and even in legislation. With the 
cultural importance of the Ukrainian element its po- 
litical importance, too, increased. But this influence 
decreased considerably when Prince Jagiello of Li- 
thuania ascended to the throne of Poland, and united 
his Lithuanian, hence also the Ukrainian, countries 
with the Polish (1386). A desperate struggle for 
predominance in the empire began between the Polish- 
Lithuanian and the Ukrainian elements, which by the 
battle of Vilkomir (1435) was decided in disfavour 
of the Ukrainians. So the Poles took the rule of the 
Ukrainian people. 

How the Poles exercised their rule over the 
Ukrainian people, was described in the second chapter. 
In the Polish-Lithuanian state the irreconcilable an- 
tagonism between the Polish and the Ukrainian hi- 
storical traditions, between the aristocratic regime of 
the Poles and the constitution of the Ukrainians, 
striving for liberty and equality of all citizens, ex- 
presses itself. 

Fate allowed the Poles to survive the dismal 
period of the partitions and of the invasions of the 
Mongols, which brought about the ruin of the Ukrai- 
nian state, so it was not difficult for them to con- 
solidate their kingdom on the model of the mo- 
narchies of Western Europe. The common people 
fell into serfdom, while the upper classes seized the 
whole power in the Polish' state. Aristocracy and 
nobility took the helm, and after the Poles, by con- 
quest and especially by the union with Lithuania, 



1 ; 



succeeded in bringing the countries between the Baltic 
and the Black Sea, and with them the Lithuanians, 
White Ruthenians, and Ukrainians, under their rule, 
the aristocratic spirit pervaded everything, and the 
consequence was that the way of thinking of a ruling 
nation has become a second nature with the Polish 
people. 

But as the single noble houses in Poland were 
at feud with one another, the Polish Empire could 
not defend the Ukrainians against the Tartars. So 
the defence of the Ukrainian people against the 
Tartars, who coming from the Crimea, invaded 
Ukraina as far as the heart of Volhynia and Galicia, 
was left to themselves. The Ukrainian population, 
therefore, had perpetually to be ready for battle. Thus 
in the sixteenth century the organization of a military 
state sprang into existence among the Ukrainians, 
which had its centre below the rapids of the river 
Dniepr. This organization was called Zaporogian 
Sitch. It was based on a military system, with strict 
military discipline, but at the same time it offered 
full equality of rights to all. The whole power rested 
on the General Assembly of the Zaporogian citizens, 
who all enjoyed equal rights. Officers and officials 
were elected by the people, and it was their duty to 
execute the decree of the General Assembly. The 
freedom of the individual was guaranteed, but he 
had to subordinate himself to the common will. That 
the aristocratic constitution of Poland opposed itself 
to such a democratic constitution of Ukraina, and 
that the Polish nobility tried by the most atrocious 
means to destroy this organization, was the conse- 
quence of the aristocratic insolence of the Polish 



44 



nobility and the aristocratic traditions of the Polish 
history. The barbarous rule of the Polish magnate 
Jeremi Wisnowiecki and of other Polish noblemen 
drove the Ukrainian people to despair and in 1648 
the Ukrainian Zaporogian Cossacks, whom the whole 
Ukrainian people from the Dniepr to the San joined, 
rose under the leadership of the Hetman Bohdan 
Chmelnyckyj to shake off the Polish yoke and 
to regain their independence. The victorious Ukrai- 
nian forces were successful and all Ukraina became 
independent again. So for the second time in history 
the independent Ukrainian state came into existence. 

But it had not fallen to the lot of the Ukrainian 
people to keep their full independence for a long time. 
Owing to the previous misgovernment of the Poles 
matters in Ukraina were so neglected, that a long 
time was needed to restore peace and order. Nor 
did the Tartars discontinue their invasions, and the 
Poles always thought of recovering Ukrainian terri- 
tories. So Chmelnyckyj had to look out for an 
alliance. He negotiated with Poland, Turkey, Trans- 
sylvania and Sweden, until at last he resolved to 
conclude a treaty with Russia at Pereyaslav 
in 1654. 

The Treaty of Pereyaslav was by its legal nature 
a spontaneous alliance of two independent states; 
and a union in the modern sense of the word. Un- 
justly Russian scholars are interpreting this treaty as 
an incorporation of Little Russia, since a merely , 
superficial analysis of this' treaty will suffice to con- 
vince any one of the tendency of this misconstruction. 
The Russian Tsar was only offered a kind of supre- 
macy; for the rest full independence was reserved 



I i 



to Ukraina in all matters of her own administration, 
legislation, in her judicial, military, and church affairs. 
The Ukrainian people was to elect the head of its 
Republic, the Hetman, by free choice, and the Hetman 
elected by the free vote of the general assembly, 
had even the right of carrying on an independent 
foreign policy. 

The treaty of the Ukrainian people with Russia 
forms an important turning-point in Ukrainian history. 
A new subject of sovereignty stretches out his hand 
over the Ukrainian people, not to the advantage of 
the latter. So the Ukrainian history gets into an im- 
mediate connexion with the history of the Russian 
people, and this is a people, whose national traditions 
run counter to the national traditions of the Ukrainian 
people. 

While the Ukrainian people by its constitution 
demanded full freedom and equality, and equal par- 
ticipation in the government, of all free citizens, we 
see the Muscovite people as early as the 12"' century 
striving for rigorous centralization in their state and 
for absolute, despotic power of the prince. The people 
assisted the prince in crushing the importance of the 
boyar nobility and of the clergy and in obtaining 
despotic power in the state. The despotism of the 
prince, afterwards of the Tsar, became the mark of 
distinction of Russian history, which, sprung from 
the inner mind of the Russian people, has helped 
the Russian Empire to obtain the position of a great 
power in Europe. Russian historical traditions give 
the absolute power in the state to a person, fitted 
out with divine authority, and to an oligarchy, forming 
his retinue. Outside this despotic circle the whole 



46 



people appears as a misera plebs, having only to, 
and being ready to, obey. On similar leading ideas 
the entire social system in Russia is based ; the 
common property of the community, the "Mir", the 
working men's organization with the bolshak at their 
head (see Chapter II. &c). Even modern bolshevism 
is the development of the same fundamental ideas, 
the result of the specific psychology of the Russian 
people ; only the Tsar and his camarilla were sup- 
planted by the oligarchy of the working men's council, 
despotic in their rule and absolute against all other 
classes of the misera plebs (Particulars see below). 

So it cannot be wondered at, that from the mo- 
ment when Ukraina got into immediate connexion 
with Russia, the fate of her independence was decided 
in her disfavour. Soon after the conclusion of the 
Treaty of Pereyaslav, however, Russia was to weak 
to accomplish the subjugation of Ukraina on her 
own risk. The kingdom of Poland was still a mighty 
rival and for his part would not yield up Ukrainian 
territories. Therefore Russia concluded a treaty with 
Poland at Andrussov in 1667, by which Ukraina was 
split up into two parts : the Western territories fell 
under Polish, the Eastern ones under Russian rule. 

In Western Ukraina, which had come under the 
Polish sphere of power, Ukrainian political life and 
the military organization of the Cossacks rapidly 
decayed after this division. 

In Eastern Ukraina, which remained with Russia, 
the Russian government .began their intriguing and 
made use of every opportunity to curtail the autonomy 
of Ukraina guaranteed by the Treaty of Pereyaslav. 
Step by step the Russian Tsars subdued the Ukrai- 



•17 



nian people to tiieir despotic rule, and when Hetmann 
M a z e p p a, at the time of the Great War with Sweden, 
formed an alliance with King Charles XII. to shake 
off the Russian yoke, he was defeated by the Russian 
army in the battle of Poltava, the Ukrainian rebellion 
was suppressed by Peter the Great amidst terrible 
atrocities, and the autonomy of Ukraina was entirely 
abolished. In 1775 the last stronghold of Ukraina, 
the Zaporogian Sitch, were destroyed by the Russians, 
and with them the last remains of the second Ukrai- 
nian state ceased to exist. 

Now the systematic subjugation of the Ukrai- 
nian people was extended to the domain of culture. 
The unitarian theory, invented by Peter the Great 
(cf. Chapter II.), was in the first place directed 
against the Ukrainians, and the Russian governments 
dealt severely and resolutely with anything connected 
with the cultural independence of the Ukrainian people. 

Thus at the end of the 17 th century the whole 
ecclesiastical literature in Ukrainian language was 
prohibited and at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century a general prohibition of printing Ukrainian 
books was issued. Ukrainian schools were closed, 
and the Russian language, which was foreign to the 
broad masses of the Ukrainian population, was intro- 
duced in the schools. The Uniat faith was suppressed 
altogether in Ukraina, and all those who professed 
it were forced by cruel persecutions to embrace the 
Orthodox faith. 

At the same time Russia began to work to the 
partition of Poland. As the Polish Empire was getting 
weaker and weaker by interior troubles, it was not 
difficult for Russia to bring it to ruin and to pluck 



I.s 



the ripe fruit, i. e. to appropriate the most important 
Ukrainian territories, that still were under Polish rule, 
to themselves on the partitions of Poland (1772-1795). 
Only East Qalicia and North Bukowina fell to the 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy on the partition. 

In the Ukrainian territories incorporated in Russia, 
the Russian Empire continued to maintain the unitarian 
theory of Peter the Great and suppressed by force 
all endeavours of the Ukrainian people at an indepen- 
dent development of their culture. Thus also those 
Ukrainians, who formerly had stood under Polish 
rule, where given the new name of "Little Russians", 
and the Russian government most ruthlessly applied 
the former policy of extermination of nationality against 
this new issue of "Little Russians". Yet the attempts at 
Russianizing the Ukrainians could not be successful. 
It is true that Russian culture, by means of public 
instruction and by the absolute prohibition of the 
Ukrainian language in the press and in public life, 
exercised a mighty influence on the Ukrainian educated 
classes, nevertheless the feeling of national indepen- 
dence remained alive in the people, and the national 
Ukrainian literature began to flourish again (see 
Chapter II.). Besides, a lively political intercourse 
between the Ukrainians living in Russia and those 
living in Austria is to be noticed, a national movement 
springing up among the Austrian Ukrainians, which 
directly aspired to the political independence of the 
Ukrainian people. 

While in Russia all efforts of the Ukrainian people 
to regain their independence were suppressed by 
force, the Austrian Ukrainians made use of their con- 
stitutional rights, and with their political opponents, 



I' I 



the Poles, carried on an unequal political war, which 
more and more came to a critical point and took 
larger and larger dimensions. 

Between the two irreconcilable opponents, the 
Ukrainians and the Poles, the Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy made her appearance as a third party, 
and the mere fact that there was a third party, who 
had the right to intervene as an arbitrator, immediately 
after the partitions of Poland roused great sympathies 
and hopes for the Austrian rulers with the Ukrainian 
population. The first rulers, Maria Theresa and Josef II., 
acquired so much merit by their liberal reforms in 
favour of the peasantry, that the memory of their rule 
is still living with the Ukrainian people. This is why 
the Ukrainian population afterwards, too, stood faith- 
fully by the side of the Austrian rulers, although the 
latter soon changed the system. When in 1846 the 
Polish Republic of Cracow was incorporated in the 
Austrian Monarchy, the Poles claimed, that West- 
Galicia should be united with East-Oaiicia into one 
crown province and that they should be entrusted 
with the rule of the whole country. Against this 
claim the Ukrainians solemnly protested and in 1848 
demanded, that Galicia should be divided into two 
crown provinces and that the administration of East- 
Galicia should be left to the Ukrainian people. In 
the period of the absolute reign of the Emperor 
Francis Joseph I.. 1850 -1860, Galicia remained divided 
into two administrative districts: the administrative 
districts of Lemberg and Cracow. This division was 
adjusted mainly to the frontiers of the two peoples 
living in Galicia, the Ukrainians and the Poles. As 
late as 1867, after the disastrous war with Germany. 



50 



the Austrian constitution created a far-reaching auto- 
nomy of the provinces with special privileges of the 
Diets. By this constitution the wish of the Poles was 
complied with, and the whole of Galicia, hence the 
Polish as well as the Ukrainian part of the country, 
were united into an administrative union under Polish 
rule. It is true that the constitution of 1867 proclaimed 
equality of rights for all peoples in school, office, 
and public life, but the Austrian government delivered 
up the Ukrainians to the Polish majority in Galicia 
and thus a new political war was kindled between 
the two peoples, in which the Poles were intent on 
more firmly establishing and extending their provincial 
autonomy, while the Ukrainians continued to protest 
against the Polish autonomy and to demand the 
division of Galicia into two provinces according to 
the territories of settlement of the two peoples. 

The Austrian government complied with all 
wishes of the Poles, because they wanted their votes 
in parliament, and the Poles always demanded new 
political rights in return, on the expense of the Ukrai- 
nians. But the more the Poles oppressed the Ukrainian 
people, the more grew the national consciousness 
and the power of resistance of the Ukrainian people. 
But in spite of all persecutions and reprisals Ukrai- 
nian civilization developed more and more, and when 
manhood suffrage and vote by ballot were introduced, 
they found well-organized political cadres of the 
Ukrainian people. As the Poles continued to exercise 
their sovereign rights over the Ukrainian people 
without fulfilling the least of duties, the Ukrainian 
people took to self-defence of their cultural, econo- 
mical and political life. But their self-defence met 



51 



with the general opposition of the Polish lords, so 
that political fights of many years had to be carried 
on to obtain the permission of opening a public school, 
in which instruction was to be given in the Ukrainian 
language, or of founding an Ukrainian agricultural 
cooperative society with a sphere of action and a 
statute of its own. Ukrainian elementary school 
training was entirely suppressed, the number of 
Ukrainian elementary schools decreased more and 
more under the administration of the Polish educa- 
tional council of the province, on the other hand 
Polish teachers were systematically appointed in 
Ukrainian elementary schools, to force the Ukrainian 
population to learn the Polish language and to 
increase the number of anaiphabets in Ukrainian 
schools. Notorious was the struggle of the Ukrainian 
students for the foundation of an independent uni- 
versity at Lemberg, which in spite of the great 
ability of the academic youths and of several scholars 
of Ukrainian nationality met with an open "Veto" of 
the Polish lords and has remained an unrealized 
demand to the present day. Notwithstanding the 
abolition of serfdom the Ukrainian peasant was 
treated as a serf by the Polish squire and was not 
allowed to enjoy any human rights, until the agrarian 
strikes taught the Polish land-owners, that they were 
not allowed to treat the peasants as part of the 
inventory. Nevertheless during the War the Polish 
land-owners, under pretence of war measures, tried 
to introduce compulsory labour on their estates and 
to reestablish the old corvee. It was only by their 
energetical resistance that the farmer's wives succeeded 
in putting a stop to the insolence of the Polish lords. 



52 



The administration of Galicia lay in the hands of 
the ruling Polish circles and the Ukrainians were 
almost entirely excluded from participation. The 
whole administrative apparatus of East Galicia was 
utilized to prepare the elections, and by persecutions 
and threats the Polish lords succeeded in forcing 
all Jews to become instruments of Polish policy, 
and by vexations and falsifications the Ukrainians 
were deprived of their true national representatives, 
in all representative bodies of the communities, the 
districts, the province, and the empire. It is generally 
known that Galician elections cost much blood of 
the Ukrainian peasants. But beyond the preparation 
of elections the Polish administration did not do 
anything that might be profitable for the country. 
Agriculture was encouraged only inasmuch as it 
was a question of subsidizing the Polish large land- 
owners and of presenting them with the means, 
which enabled them to lead an easy life; nevertheless 
they were losing their importance from day to day, 
since they squandered the subsidies which they 
received, and many of them were forced to sell their 
estates. For the encouragement of trade and commerce 
large estimates were granted in the budget, but the 
sums melted away in the hands of different Polish 
functionaries and nothing was done for the promotion 
of trade and commerce. In short: many millions 
were squandered under Polish administration, which 
encumbered the budget of the province and brought 
it to insolvency, but yielded no profit to the province, 
and especially to the Ukrainian part of it. Thus 
Polish high-ways and lanes, and "Polish household" 
in general, have gained a world-wide reputation. 



53 



The assertion of the Poles, therefore, that it is to 
them that the Ukrainians owe their civilization and 
their orderly state of affairs, must decidedly be repelled. 
On the contrary, it is they who almost reduced the 
Ukrainian peasant to beggary (confer the arguments 
of the Polish writer Szczepanowski : "Distress in 
Galicia") and made a proletariat of the Ukrainian 
middle classes. Nevertheless the Ukrainian people 
entered into the political warfare against the Polish 
lords on their own strength, and were not diverted 
from their endeavour by any persecutions. 

The political struggle between the Poles and 
the Ukrainians got harder and harder and the Poles 
redoubled their hatred and their persecutions, when 
at the end of the 19 th century the conservative party 
of the Polish aristocracy and nobility lost their in- 
fluence and the Polish bourgeoisie and civil servants 
founded anew party, which took up the struggle for 
the re-establishment of Poland in her former historical 
frontiers. As the endeavours of the Ukrainian people 
were running counter to this idea, the new Polish 
party, the Pan-Poles, allied with all elements that 
could assist them in the suppression of the Ukrainian 
ideas of indepence. That accounts for the alliance 
of the Pan-Poles with the Russians, and thus it is 
evident, why the Pan-Poles openly supported the 
Russophile propaganda, which Russia made in Austria. 
Although the Pan-Poles were wrestling for prepon- 
derance with the Polish aristocracy and liked to call 
themselves a democratic party, they remained as im- 
perialistic and aristocratic by nature as the former 
political rulers. Nor did things take another turn. 
when during the War, a reconciliation took place 



54 



between the Pan-Poles, the People's Party, and the 
Polish Social-Democratic party. The historical tra- 
ditions of a ruling nation were maintained as before 
and all those parties did not change their position 
regarding the Ukrainians, for it remained an axiom 
with them, that the Ukrainians were a quantite negli- 
geable and had to submit to the Polish rule. The 
aristocratic principle was still predominating among 
the political parties of Poland, and the Pan-Poles 
adopted the old aristocratic traditions of the Polish 
empire unchanged from their political predecessors. 
No reconciliation, therefore, is possible between the 
aristocratic system of Polish sway and the democratic 
system of national self-determination of the Ukrainians. 

When the War broke out, the Ukrainians were 
altogether oppressed in Austria by the Pan-Poles 
and in Tsaristic Russia by the Russian Nationalists. 
At the outbreak of the War the Austrian Ukrainians 
declared for the Central Powers. It is evident that 
they could not on any terms side with those powers, 
who were allied with Tsaristic Russia. For Tsarism 
kept nearly 35 million Ukrainians in its "jail of na- 
tions" and the independence of Ukraina was not to 
be thought of, as long as Tsarism with its unitarian 
theory existed. Away from Russia ! was the device 
of the Ukrainians. To overthrow Tsarism the Austrian 
Ukrainians placed their legions at the disposal of the 
Central Powers. Besides, the Austrian statesmen at 
the beginning of the War promised to deliver the 
Ukrainians from the Polish yoke. Could then the 
Ukrainians turn against the Central Powers? 

Meanwhile the Ukrainians, who lived in Russia, 
were forced to fight against the Central Powers on 



the side of Russia, and it is said that they were not 
reluctant to do so. On the contrary, the chronicle of 

events of the first year of the War proves that it 
was exactly the Ukrainian soldiers and officers, who 
look a prominent part in the victories of the Allied 
Powers in Eastern Europe. Yet it can he said with' 
full certainty, that the threads of revolution had for 
a long time been stretched all over Russia and that 
the Ukrainian leaders knew, that the Ukrainian people 
could be delivered only by a great revolution. 

Although the Ukrainians of Austria had declared 
at the beginning of the War, that they were aiming 
at the overthrow of Russian Tsarism, the Poles* who 
up to the War had aided the Russophile propaganda, 
made use of the outbreak of the Great War to re- 
present the Ukrainian people to the military circles 
of Austria as being Russophile, and to charge "Ru- 
thenian treachery" with all defeats of the Central 
Powers. The Polish administration of Qalicia opened 
this campaign of defamation for the purpose of de- 
livering up all educated Ukrainian elements, so far 
as they did not serve at the front, to the revenge of 
Austrian militarism, and thus making impossible 
the deliverance of the Ukrainian people of Austria. 
Under the control of the Polish authorities the leaders 
of the Ukrainians, who had always fought against 
Russophilism and Tsarism, were denounced, many 
thousands of guiltless Ukrainians were hanged, and 
the atrocities committed against those who were 
transported to Talerhof, are a blemish in Austrian 
history; but at the same time they prove, how far 
advanced the Polish political circles were in their 
national hatred, that they did not shrink from dis- 



56 



gracing the whole Ukrainian people, thus to get rid 
of their troublesome political opponent. The Polish 
political circles will never be able to clear themselves 
of this charge, though the method practised by them 
was soon turned against members of the Polish 
people, and the court-martial death-sentences against 
guiltless Ukrainian citizens, that were executed on 
Polish denunciations or by Judges of Polish nationality 
(e. g. the Polish judge Stanislas Zagorsk i, who 
had hundreds of guiltless Ukrainian peasants and 
clergymen put to death, as can be seen from several 
reports in the "Arbeiterzeitung", the social democratic 
paper of Vienna), and the arbitrary killings of Ukrai- 
nian citizens by military detachments on the strength 
of Polish calumny speak so eloquent a language, 
that it is not to be wondered at, if the whole Ukrai- 
nian people would rather cease to exist altogether 
than any longer bear the Polish rule. 

Therefore the representatives of the Ukrainian 
people in Austria demanded, that Qalicia should im- 
mediately be divided and all Ukrainian territories 
should be united into a separate province with Ukrai- 
nian self-administration. But till 1918 the Austrian 
government did not think of complying with this 
demand of the Ukrainian people, on the contrary, 
they were ready at any time to establish a separate 
position of Qalicia and to deliver up the Ukrainians 
to the Poles, the more so as both emperors of Austria 
dreamt of the crown of Poland and were willing to 
push on the Austro-Polish solution (i. e. the union 
of Austria and Poland under one monarch) with all 
possible means, hence over the heads of the Ukrai- 
nians. 



57 



But it was not before the end of 1917 and the 
beginning of 1918 that the Central Powers saw them- 
selves compelled to approach the Ukrainian problem. 
For strategical reasons they were obliged to make 
peace with Russia under any circumstances, and for 
economical reasons they wanted provisions from 
Ukraina. In Russia Tsarism had already fallen down 
and the Russian revolution broke all chains, that had 
been imposed upon the Ukrainian people: Ukrainia 
then proclaimed her independence. (Particulars see 
below.) Now Ukraina was ready to make peace, but 
she demanded on the one hand, that the ethnogra- 
phical frontiers should be punctually observed in the 
North West (Kholm and Podlashe), on the other hand 
that the Ukrainian territories of Galicia and Bukowina 
should be reunited with Ukraina. Thus the first hi- 
storical opportunity, at which Ukraina appeared as 
an authoritative factor, showed, that the idea of the 
union of all Ukrainian territories had never died out 
in the people. Now the Central Powers in the Brest 
Treaty expressed the recognition of the Ukrainian 
Republic, but they would not cede the Ukrainian 
territories of Austria. In a secret treaty, however, they 
obliged themselves to separate the Ukrainian terri- 
tories of Austria from West Galicia and to create a 
separate province of them with Ukrainian admini- 
stration. The Austrian Prime Minister Seidler signed 
this secret treaty and pledged his word to the par- 
liamentary representatives of the Ukrainian people, 
that he would perform it. 

Up to this moment the Ukrainian members of 
the Austrian parliament had been in opposition to 
the government. But after the conclusion of the Brest 



58 



Treaty, which recognized the independence of the 
Ukrainian Republic, and after the promise, that the 
Ukrainians would be delivered from the Polish yoke, 
it was evident that the Ukrainian representatives 
had to support the Seidler government, and as 
Dr. Seidler was backed by German parties in 
parliament, the Ukrainians, after the conclusion of 
the Brest Treaty, consistently joined the German go- 
vernment-majority. While the Poles had for decades, 
and even during the War, allied themselves with the 
Germans against other Slav peoples, the Ukrainians 
had always been in opposition to the government 
and to the German parties, and it was not before the 
independence of Ukraina had been recognized by the 
Central Powers and the division of Galicia had been 
promised, that they declared themselves ready to take 
part in the government. This once only the Ukrainian 
representatives voted with the Germans, and only 
when the holiest rights of the Ukrainian people were 
at stake. Nor could the Ukrainians be interested in any 
further support of the Germans, when Dr. Hussarek, 
who succeeded Dr. Seidler as President of the 
Council, informed the Ukrainians, that he was no 
more ready to perform the secret Brest Treaty con- 
cerning the division of Ukraina. 

When the break-down of the Central Powers 
was inevitable, the Austrian Emperor Charles, by his 
manifesto of October 16 th , 1918, tried to save the 
continuance of the Austrian Monarchy by conceding 
to all nations the right of constituting independent 
political organisms on their territories and then setting 
up a confederation. Separate national states, then, 
were formed but they had no desire to establish a 



59 



confederation. The Monarchy ceased to exist. The 
Ukrainian National Assembly at Lemberg, on Oc- 
tober 18"', 1918, decreed the establishment of an in- 
dependent Ukrainian republic on the Ukrainian terri- 
tories of Austria-Hungary. The new state, in the 
meeting of the Ukrainian National Council at Lemberg 
on November 15'", 1918, received the name of "Re- 
public of the People of West Ukraina". 

The Poles, however, at once took up a hostile 
attitude towards the establishment of the Ukrainian 
Republic. The Ukrainians demanded from the Austrian 
government, that on the strength of the above-men- 
tioned manifesto the administration of East Galicia 
and North Bukowina should be given to them, but 
the Austrian government was too weak to perform 
the manifesto in favour of the Ukrainian people, for 
the Emperor of Austria was still dreaming of the 
Polish crown. So the Ukrainians saw themselves 
compelled, when Austria was going to pieces, to en- 
force the taking-up of the administration from the 
Austrian governor at Lemberg on their own risk. 
Getting the start of the Poles, they succeeded on 
November I s ', 1918, with the assistance of troops of 
Ukrainian nationality, who were stationed at Lemberg, 
in disarming other forces and taking possession of 
all departments of the administration at Lemberg. 
Now the Poles resorted to the well-tested means of 
calumny, to make the world believe that the revolution 
at Lemberg had not been brought about by Ukrainian, 
but by German and Austrian forces. This assertion 
is decidedly as false as all other rumours spread 
about by the Poles, concerning the alleged assistance 
of the Germans at the taking-up by the Ukrainians 



GO 



of the administration in Galicia. If in the Ukrainian 
forces of East Galicia there were, by way of exception, 
officers of German nationality, it was only those who 
after November 1 st , 1918, had joined the Ukrainian 
army as volunteers, most of whom had been born 
in Galicia and had during the War served in regi- 
ments, where the great majority of the men were of 
Ukrainian nationality. Perfectly fictitious were also 
the news, fabricated by the Poles, that the Ukrainians 
had promised the crown of Ukraina to the Austrian 
archduke William Habsburg; for, on the contrary, 
archduke William, who had voluntarily put himself 
at the disposal of the Ukrainian National Council, 
had to resign the command of the Ukrainian legion 
and to retire from his position : he has now for 
some time been living in St. Basil's Convent at 
Buczacz. 

Let the Poles say whatever they will, yet they 
cannot deny the fact, that after the chains, which 
had been imposed on the Ukrainians by the Austrian 
government, had been broken, the whole Ukrainian 
people of East Galicia rose to defend their territories 
against the Poles. At the beginning of November 1918 
the Ukrainians wanted to take the administration of 
their national territory in their hands without blood- 
shed. But when the Poles drove them from Przemysl 
and Lemberg by force of arms, nothing was left to 
the Ukrainian people but to enter into the war with 
the Poles. Still now a bitter war is being waged in 
East Galicia between both peoples, it openly being 
the aim of the Ukrainian people to shake off the 
Polish yoke once for all. It would be downright ridi- 
culous to speak of "German intrigues", or to pretend 



that the Ukrainians arc not fighting for self-deter- 
mination as a nation, but for other reasons. 

Of still greater consequence than what happened 
on the Ukrainian territories of the Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy, were the events on the territory of Great 
Ukraina within the bounds of the former Russian 
Empire. With this report we come to the last epoch 
of Ukrainian history, which may be said to be of 
the greatest importance for the appreciation of the 
historical mission of the Ukrainian people. 

As was said before, Tsaristic Russia went to the 
war to destroy the Ukrainian Piedmont in Galicia 
and Bukowina, and thus to give the death-blow to 
the Ukrainian people's spirit of freedom. Therefore 
still in times of peace all preparations were made, 
definitely to secure this object in war. On the one 
hand the nationalist circles of Russia set in with a 
widespread Russophile propaganda in Galicia, Buko- 
wina, and North Hungary, to prepare the Ukrainian 
people on these territories for the entire union with 
Russia and separation from Austria, on the Ukrainian 
territories of Russia on the other hand they used 
every possible means, by dislocation of Russians in 
the most important centres of Ukrainian trade, to 
nip the propagation of the Ukrainian people's endeav- 
ours for national independence in the bud. They 
appointed nationalist Russian officials everywhere in 
Ukraina, encouraged the incessant immigration of the 
Russian educated classes and Russian commercial 
and manufacturing circles into the large towns of 
Ukraina, and with them great numbers of Russian 
working men came into Ukraina, so that in all large 
towns of the country, especially in Kieff and Odessa. 



62 



a great majority of "true Russian people" entirely 
overflooded the paltry contingent of Ukrainian middle 
class people. Besides, it must be taken into con- 
sideration that the Ukrainian educated classes them- 
selves often allied with those Russian organizations, 
who wanted to bring about the break-down ofTsarism 
and thereby a new social order in Russia. Thus at 
Kieff the best organized cadres were those of the ill- 
famed "Black Hundred" in the service of Tsarism, 
and on the other hand the organizations of the 
Russian revolutionaries, in which Ukrainians, too, 
took part, and by which the revolutionary doctrines 
of the Russian circles were propagated among the 
Ukrainian educated classes. In these organizations 
the Ukrainians played an important part. 

During the War the Russians took care that in 
Ukraina chiefly such troops chould be dislocated, as 
had a majority of Russians ; in the Russian territory, 
on the other hand, many Ukrainian troops were 
stationed. It is known that the Petrograd garrison 
on the day of the outbreak of the revolution consisted 
mainly 'of Ukrainian troops, who immediately after 
the revolution was proclaimed, held a procession in 
Petrograd and solemnly demanded the independence 
of Ukraina. 

But all these means were not able to prevent the 
living mind of the Ukrainian people from striving for 
deliverance. In the broad masses of the population 
the historical traditions of a free and independent 
people continued to live in spite of all violent mea- 
sures. For a long time these ideas had to be cherished 
in secret, but when with the proclamation of the 
Russian revolution the chains ofTsarism were broken, 



63 



the whole Ukrainian people at once declared its 
independence and could not be diverted from its 
demand by the great numbers of Russians in the 
large towns of Ukraina. All classes of the people 
united and elected the Central Rada at Kieff, who 
with their Commissaries of the People demanded the 
recognition of the autonomy of Ukraina from the 
revolutionary government of Russia. 

Now it appeared again, that the inner mind of 
the Russian can never be reconciled with the inner 
mind of the Ukrainian people. Although with the 
break-down of Tsarism and the beginning of the 
revolution free scope was given to true freedom and 
democracy, the revolutionary government of Russia 
from the outset contented themselves with only pro- 
claiming liberal ideas, among which was also self- 
determination of the peoples, but they were far from 
granting self-determination to the numerous peoples 
of Russia and especially from actually allowing 
the Ukrainian people's claim for self-determination. 
Tsarism was crushed, but the spirit of the absolute 
rule of the peoples by an oligarchic upper class, 
which had been the fundamental idea of Tsarism 
and the result of the historical traditions of the Mus- 
covite people, in contradistinction to the Ukrainian 
people's ideas of true democratic liberty and equality, 
was upheld, and Russian despotism only changed 
its name. The Tsar was supplanted first by the 
Government, which was composed of several members, 
but soon the ranks grew thinner, the contest between 
M iljuko w and Keren skyi was decided in favour 
of the latter, and Kerenskyj, supported by the 
favour of the Russian people, usurped the dictator- 



64 



ship. There was an autocratic ruler of Russia again, 
but in his dictatorship he was only disturbed by the 
fact, that he could not claim that general recognition, 
which in their time the Tsars had gained for cen- 
turies, and the consequence was, that other dictators, 
too, appeared, such as Kornilov, Kaledin and 
others. Thus the Russian revolution, in the very first 
months of her existence, degenerated into a contest 
for the rule between several dictators. 

But all those dictators agreed in denying the 
Ukrainians their national independence and in using 
all means conceivable to rule them from Petrograd 
as before and to paralyze their endeavours for inde- 
pendence. Thus between the Russian revolutionary 
government and the Central Rada at Kieff a continuous 
fight began, the latter having to defend themselves 
not only against the attacks of the Russian govern- 
ment of Petrograd and Moscow, but also against 
the attacks of the Soldiers' and Workmen's Councils, 
formed of soldiers and workmen of Russian nationality 
at Kieff, Odessa, Kharkoff etc. For from the moment 
when the Ukrainian Central Rada formed at Kieff and 
demanded the national autonomy of Ukraina, they 
had the whole Russian people against them; who- 
soever had a Russian way of thinking and feeling, 
fought with all their power against the demand for 
the independence of Ukraina. Now as before the 
inner mind of the Russian people culminated in the 
ideal of absolute rule: It is only the Russians who 
can rule, and only single persons; all others have 
to obey. 

On exactly valuing these facts, one is surprised 
how much elementary force there was in the Ukrainian 



6 



people, that in the very first year of the Russian 
revolution it resisted the perpetual hostilities of the 
Russian government as well as the incessant intrigues 
and revolts of the Russian circles in Ukraina. This 
was the people which immediately before had been 
officially declared not to exist, to be only a branch 
of the Russian people, as it were, a quantite 
negligeable without a civilization and a traditioii of 
its own. 

In these circumstances the Ukrainian people and 
its organ, the Central Rada at Kieff, could not at 
once step forth with the demand for entire separation 
from Russia, and at the beginning they confined 
themselves to the attainment of autonomy on all 
Ukrainian territories of Russia. But the more they 
insisted on the performance of their autonomy, the 
more they met with the opposition of the Russian 
government at every turn, and with regular revolts 
of Russian circles in Ukraina. So the Ukrainian 
people had to understand, that by friendly arrange- 
ments they would never effect the autonomy of 
Ukraina within Russia, and this understanding soon 
became so general, that the government of the Central 
Rada, that consisted of supporters of a free federation 
of Ukraina with Russia, had to give way to another 
government, who were ready immediately to carry 
into effect the common national ideal of independence 
of Ukraina without federation with Russia, even 
against the will of Russia. The result of the elections 
for the Russian Constituent Assembly was an over- 
whelming majority of Social Revolutionaries in 
Ukraina, who demanded the entire separation from 
Russia, and when the Constituent Assembly was 



66 



driven away by the latest Russian government of the 
Bolshevists, nothing was left to the Central Rada 
but to proclain on their own authority what they 
had wanted to obtain from the Constituent Assembly. 
Thus at Kieff at the beginning of 1918 an independent 
Republic of the Ukrainian People was proclaimed 
and thereby the separation of Ukraina from Russia 
was accomplished. 

In Russia a Bolshevist government was formed 
with Lenin and Trotzkyj at their head. They at 
once gained a large popularity by declaring, in contra- 
distinction to the former revolutionary governments, 
that they were willing at once to make peace with 
the Central Powers. It was the general opinion in 
Russia that the disastrous war should be finished at 
all costs, to enjoy the results of the revolution in 
peace. The Bolshevists were in need of peace to 
help their endeavours to triumph. They were conscious 
that the great numbers of returning soldiers would 
be the best material for securing the communist pro- 
paganda. They were ready to deliver up to them not 
only the last remains of the Tsaristic regime but also 
all organizations of the propertied classes without 
any restriction, to create the future cadres of the 
bolshevist regime out of the millions of the army- 
forces flowing back in disorder. The War and the 
revolution had turned millions of workmen and sol- 
diers out of work, therefore the Bolshevists resolved 
to bring these millions to their side by giving them full 
scope, by delivering up the propertied classes to them, 
and then by enrolling them in their own Red Guards. 

As apostles of peace the Bolshevists at once got 
the rule over the whole of Russia. To shape this 



67 



rule to the latest fashion, they also proclaimed self- 
determination of the peoples and during the peace- 
negotiations they recognized Ukraina as an inde- 
pendent contracting party and granted the Ukrainians 
the right of self-determination which was claimed by 
them. Nevertheless this recognition was of a nature 
merely theoretical, for soon such an antagonism ap- 
peared between the Bolshevist government and the 
Ukrainians, that on the conclusion of the Brest Treaty 
it came to an open rupture, and the Ukrainian re- 
presentatives at Brest were forced to conclude the 
Treaty with the Central Powers earlier than the 
Bolshevist government did in the name of Russia. 

For one has to take the following facts into 
consideration : 

In the same measure as the first Russian govern- 
ments during the revolution had remained faithful to 
the historical traditions of the Russian people, the 
Bolshevists, too. are a true embodiment of the Russian 
mind, with a propensity for the rule of a small oli- 
garchy and the implicit obedience of the people. But 
the leaders of the Bolshevists went farther than their 
predecessors, they dreamt of ruling the world. They 
did not content themselves with Russia, so they 
preached internationalism. But in the former Empire 
of Russia they wanted to rule all peoples alone and 
directly, and by self-determination of the peoples they 
understand, that all peoples of the former Russia 
should be forced to recognize the sovereignty oi 
Russia and thereby the rule of Russian Bolshevism. 

On closer examination of its nature Bolshevism 
will be found to be of a creation specifically Russian. 
Socialization of all instruments of production as well 



68 



as communism, which the Bolshevists pass off as 
their religion, require a stern, absolute rule, which 
has to take the management of the whole social ap- 
paratus into strong hands. For such an order, which 
can be created only over the head of the individual, 
a foundation had long age been created in Russia. 
In the 2 nd chapter it was pointed out, how the in- 
stitution of the common property of the community, 
the Mir, the working men's organization with the 
"Bolshak" at its head, were the natural outcome of the 
specific mind of the Russian people. Now Bolshevism 
makes a general principle of these institutions, so it 
is not to be wondered at, that in the second year of 
the Bolshevist government a stern organizaticn was 
already introduced in Russia. Individual freedom and 
equality are supplanted by the equal subjection of 
all to the rule of the oligarchy, much as it had been 
under Tsarism. Only that the rulers are now called 
Lenin and Trotzkyj, and instead of the Tsaristic 
camarilla the Workmen's Councils hold their meetings, 
and they, too, are mainly blind tools in the hands 
of the rulers, and as the representatives of a very 
small class of the Russian people (the industrial pro- 
letariat) they deserve the name of an "oligarchy". But 
while Tsarism had been got over by modern history, 
Bolshevism has seized the latest catchwords, which 
are especially qualified to unite all malcontents, and 
it is no secret, that in Russia the discontent of the 
broad masses dates from centuries past and was 
pushed to extremes by the Great War. 

In the Ukrainian people, however, in spite of all 
discontent no foundation ever existed for Russian 
Bolshevism, especially because it is a Russian creation 



69 



which is utterly inconsistent with the mind of the 
Ukrainian people. Full freedom of the individual, 
equality of all citizens, the right of all to cooperate 
in the government of t!ie community on democratic 
basis : these are inborn wants of the Ukrainian people ; 
hence its unswerving demand to keep and protect 
private property. Only where history has esta- 
blished illegalities and deprived the working people 
of their soil, to bestow it upon the priviliged classes of 
the large land-owners, the Ukrainian peasant demands 
abolishment of the illegalities and allotmend to the 
peasants, against reasonable compensation, of the 
estates of the large land-owners, which had in their 
time accrued to them contrary to law. It is obvious 
that this demand has nothing in common with Bolshe- 
vist communism. 

On the contrary, when we study the history of 
the last two years of war without prejudice, we see 
that there is such an antagonism between Russian 
Bolshevism and the Ukrainian point of view, that 
a fundamental conflict arises, wherever Bolshevism 
endeavours to subdue the Ukrainian people. 

Still before the conclusion of the Brest Treaty 
the undisciplined masses of the Russian army were 
flowing back from the front. In the Ukrainian large 
cities there were Russian workmen's and soldier's 
councils, and thus all "true Russian people" united 
to deprive Ukraina of her independence. The Ukrai- 
nian government had no national army at their disposal 
and was so imperilled by the Bolshevist soldiers, 
that after the conclusion of peace they had to re- 
course to the protection of the Central Powers. (It is 
true that the Allied Powers before the conclusion of 



70 



the Brest Treaty wanted to induce the Ukrainians to 
continue the war, but it was impossible to do so 
against the will of the whole people. So the Ukrai- 
nian government was forced to enter into negotiations 
with the Central Powers and to sign the Brest Treaty). 
Bolshevist propaganda, with which the "true Russian 
people" set in, began to be dangerous in the country, 
too, as the Bolshevists used all means of agitation 
and promised everything to the peasants, to interest 
them in their Russian aims. Therefore the Central 
Rada at Kieff, was forced to promise far-reaching 
agrarian reform on the expense of the large land- 
owners to the Ukrainian peasantry, to put an obstacle 
in the way of Bolshevism. 

The German forces drove the Bolshevists from 
Ukraina, but soon became implicated in an entirely 
wrong policy against the Ukrainian people. The 
Central Rada was overthrown and a dictatorship was' 
established under the protectorate of the Germans. 
A large land-owner of the name of Skoropadskyj, 
who was at the same time a brother-in-law of the 
German general Eichhorn, was appointed Hetman 
and commenced his rule with the assistance of the 
German forces and of the Russian oppressors. 'He 
made an enemy of the whole Ukrainian people. 

But when after the victory of the Allied Powers 
the German forces had to leave Ukraina and the 
Hetman wanted to deliver up the Ukrainian state to 
Russia, Skoropadskyj's rule was done for, the 
whole people rose and he had to leave. In the for- 
merly Russian part of Ukraina the independent and 
autonomous Republic of the Ukrainian People was 
again proclaimed. Since the capture of Kieff by 



Petlura's Ukrainian forces the Ukrainian people has 
regained its independence on the formerly Russian 
territories. 

Before this came to pass, the events of war 
created new national states on the territory of the 
late Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, among them also 
the Republic of the People of Western Ukraina. (See 
above.) When it was proclaimed, Hetman Skoro- 
padskyj, who, with the assistance of the German 
forces, as was said before, ruled against the will of 
the Ukrainian people, was still at the head of the 
government at Kieff. At that time the government of 
the Republic of the People of Western Ukraina could 
not unite with Skoropadskyj's government. But 
from the moment, when the government most hostile 
to the people was done away with at Kieff, the idea 
of the Union of all Ukrainian territories revived and 
on January 3 rd , 1919, this union was solemnly pro- 
claimed. The Directorate of the Ukrainian People at 
Kieff on January 21 s1 , 1919, confirmed this union by 
the solemn declaration of the union of all Ukrainian 
territories into one great Republic of the Ukrainian 
People. 

Immediately after the German forces had left 
Ukraina and the Ukrainian national forces had 
occupied Kieff, the Bolshevists appeared again with 
their propaganda and with their schemes of conquest. 
As the Ukrainian large towns still show a great 
majority of Russians and as the Cossacks of the 
Don as well as the numerous miners of the Donetz 
basin are now among the followers of Bolshevism, 
they can very easily make incursions into Ukraina. 
They are endowed with large funds by the Russian 



72 



Bolshevist government and always get succour directly 
from Russia. 

At present the Ukrainian Directorate is in a state 
of war with the Russian Bolshevists. They have 
ordered further enlistments of recruits in Ukraina and 
the levy is going on well. The Ukrainian government 
is quite aware of the fact that they have to carry 
through the war against the Bolshevists to the end, 
because only they are threatening the independence 
of Ukraina. 

Wrongly the opponents of the independence of 
the Ukrainian people want to prove, that the Ukrai- 
nians themselves are Bolshevists and are not to be 
trusted in spite of their warfare against the Bolshevists. 
Such assertions have a distinct tendency and are due 
to perfect unacquaintance with the actual circumstances. 

It was already proved above, that the Ukrainian 
people decidedly reject Bolshevism as a form of 
government and can never be reconciled to it. In 
spite of their fight against Bolshevism agrarian reform 
appears as a condition sine qua non of the Ukrai- 
nian constitution. The Ukrainian formula, however, 
does not say socialization of the soil, but nationali- 
zation of the same. For the latest Ukrainian Workmen's 
and Peasants' Congress in Ukraina (in January of 
this year) resolved that private property should 
be kept, but demanded that the estates should be 
purchased from the large land-owners by the state 
and allotted to the peasants against reasonable com- 
pensation, which should be paid to the state by the 
peasants. Only at the beginning of Bolshevist agitation 
there were some so-called supporters of the ideas 



7.". 



of Bolshevism among the Ukrainian peasants, but 
this was only due to the fact that many peasants did 
not understand the difference between socialization 
and nationalization of the soil. After the latest Work- 
men's and Feasants' Congress there can be no doubt, 
that the Ukrainian peasants decidedly disapprove of 
the Bolshevist principle of socialization. 

Russian Bolshevism, however, is not only a 
danger for Ukraina, but for the whole of Europe, not 
only because it disposes of catchwords highly effec- 
tive on states of the soul caused by war psychosis, 
and therefore can be spread everywhere like a con- 
tagious disease, but also because on the ruins of 
individual freedom and equality and in the place of 
true democracy of the peoples it proclaims the pre- 
ponderance of one class, that will rule and subdue 
all others. European culture with the countless trea- 
sures of intellect and civilization is threatened. There- 
fore the danger must be localized, not to degenerate 
into a chronic disease. Insofar as Bolshevism is in 
accordance with the mind of the Russian people, it 
shall be upheld, but confined to the Russian people. 

This localization can be carried out only by 
the Ukrainian people. As the immediate neighbours 
of the Russians, only the Ukrainians can prevent the 
sphere of influence of Bolshevism from being extended 
to the rest of Europe and there striking deep roots, 
if the Ukrainian people stops Bolshevism on its way, 
it can appear in Europe only for a short time and 
by way of exception, for Ukraina is the connecting 
link between Orient and Occident. 

The Ukrainians are also in the first place fit for 
this task, because thereby they are protecting their 



74 



own independence. For so many centuries Ukraina 
had to ward off the pillaging expeditions of the 
Mongols, Tartars, and Turks, and by doing so has 
gained great merit in the history of European civili- 
zation. This time, too, she is ready to perform a 
similar mission against Bolshevism, but she demands 
loyal support in return and admission into the Eu- 
ropean community of peoples. 



75 



IV. The Ukrainian Territory. 

As far as its history can be traced back, the 
Ukrainian people was, on the whole, settled on the 
same territory as at present. Thus at the time of the 
great-prince Volodymyr the great in the 10' h century 
the frontiers of the State of Kieff did not include 
much more nor essentially other territories, than 
belong to the ethnographically coherent national 
territory of the Ukrainian people at present. It may 
justly be said, therefore, that the present Ukrainian 
territory is marked out not only by history but also 
by ethnography, hence that the territory claimed by 
the Ukrainians is their ethnographical as well as 
historical territory. But as only the ethnographical 
principle is to be taken into consideration at present 
(see 1 st chapter), it can be noticed that the former 
historical frontiers have given way a little in the 
West, but have largely extended towards the East. 
In the West the Ukrainian territories originally reached 
as far as the Vislok and even as far as the Visloka, 
tributaries of the Vistula, while at present, except 
for the territory of the Lemkes, which goes far back 
to the West in the Carpathian Mountains, not many 
territories reach beyond the river San (likewise a 
tributary of the Vistula) On the other hand the 



76 



Ukrainian settlements are expanding more and more 
towards the East, so that at present great numbers 
of them reach the Volga and the Caspian Sea. 

Leaving this purely ethnographical process, 
however, out of the question, it must be stated that 
the Ukrainian territory was never extended on the 
expense of foreign national territories. The Ukrainian 
people never aimed at conquests and annexations, 
it was itself, on the contrary, the object of foreign 
conquest, and for many centuries it was split up 
between two foreign state territories (Poland and 
Russia, see 3 rd chapter). The consequence was that 
the Ukrainian people, save on its coherent national 
territory, is represented on foreign territories only by 
virtue of the natural process, while on the Ukrainian 
national territories the former conquerors very often 
had the chance of partly substituting their own settle- 
ments for the original settlements of the Ukrainian 
people. In the larger towns on the coherent Ukrainian 
territory as well as here and there in the country 
we find a population composed of many nationalities 
and among them sometimes a large percentage of 
Poles or Russians. This circumstance is, on the one 
hand, fully justified by the Ukrainian history down 
to the present day (see 3 rd chapter), on the other 
hand it is not such as, in any way, to prejudice the 
frontiers of the coherent Ukrainian territory, all the 
more since the actual settlements of foreign nations 
on the latter appear only as islands in the large 
Ukrainian sea. 

It would be a great injustice, if the Peace Con- 
ference should grant any right over the whole 
Ukrainian territory, or over parts of it, to the Poles 



n 



or Russians, under the pretext that the Ukrainian 
territories here and there show a considerable per- 
centage of Polish or Russian population. The spirit 
of the modern age is not favourable to one-sided 
conquests and annexations, since self-determination 
of the peoples is inconsistent with it. The injustice 
which Germany committed by the annexation of 
Alsace-Lorraine must be repaired. Thus restitution 
must be made for all one-sided conquests, hencu 
also those territories which in course of history 
have come under the sway of other peoples by 
conquest, must be given back to the nation, which 
is settled on them. As neither the Polish nor the 
Russian islands within the Ukrainian territory are 
the result of former annexations, neither Poland nor 
Russia can lay claim to the Ukrainian territory on 
this legal title. This also settles the argument, so 
often alleged by the Poles, that because of the large 
percentage of Poles living on the Ukrainian territory 
they are entitled to claim as much of the Ukrainian 
territory, as corresponds to the number of the Polish 
population living there. 

But the Poles are going farther in their demands. 
They are claiming the whole of Galicia (hence East 
Galicia, too,) the Governments of Kholm, Podlashe, 
and a part of Volhynia for themselves. 

Let us now contemplate the population on these 
territories. 

A. We first of all begin with Galicia. 

It is well known to every scholar that, wherever 
on earth one nation is ruling another, the statistics 
of nationalities always turn out in favour of the ruling 
nation. Considering that before the war the Ukrainian 



78 



people on all parts of its national territory was under 
the sway of different foreign nations, it is obvious 
that official statistics reduced the numbers of the 
Ukrainian population. This was the case in Russia, 
in Bukowina, in Hungary, and in Galicia. 

In Galicia it was of great consequence to the 
Poles, by means of their administrative apparatus 
to prove that in the whole of Galicia the Poles 
had the majority; this was easily done. But when 
the political struggle between the Poles and the 
Ukrainians confined itself more and more to East 
Galicia, the Poles used all their energy, to curtail 
the great majority of Ukrainians in East Galicia by 
force at every census, and by falsifications carried 
on systematically to attain in course of time, that 
according to official statistics the number of the 
Poles in East Galicia appeared to be almost equal 
to the number of the Ukrainians. 

For this purpose they used different means. 

First of all they effected by their influence in the 
Austrian central offices, that in the official publications 
Galicia was always treated as one administrative 
union: so at first glance it was concealed from any 
foreigner, that in East Galicia not the Poles, but the 
Ukrainians had a great majority. 

Besides, the Poles made the most of the fact, 
that the official statistics contained no column for 
nationality, but a column for "language spoken in 
every day life", the languages allowed by law being 
particularized. As the "Yiddish" language was not 
recognized by law, the Jews of Galicia had to be 
entered in the columns of the Polish, the Ukrainian, 
or the German language, and the consequence was, 



79 



tli at with very few exceptions the Jews, whether they 

liked or not, were forced by the Polish authorities 
to enter their names in the column of the Polish 
"spoken language". Althoug the "language spoken in 
every day life" can not by its nature be fit un- 
questionably to define the nationality of the individual, 
still the opinion is adhered to that nothing but the 
nationality is decided by this column, and that the 
"language spoken in every day life" was introduced 
into the census statistics immediately for the purpose 
of fishing in the troubled waters. The consequence 
was that not only almost all Jews were entered as 
Poles, but also all somehow dependent elements of 
other nations (chiefky Ukrainians) were stamped as 
Poles. Above all, those Ukrainians who embraced 
the Roman Catholic faith, were almost without ex- 
ception entered as Poles, although they were Ukrai- 
nians not only by their mother tongue but also by 
descent. Many Germans, too, who were Roman Ca- 
tholics, were often entered as Poles. 

Lastly the organization of censuses in Galicia 
was such as to encourage falsifications of the official 
statistics at every turn. According to the regulations 
the censuses in the country had to be carried through 
by the local authorities: but their superintendence 
fell to the duty of the chief magistrates of the district, 
and in East Galicia the consequence was, that, for 
communities which were likely to return the true 
numbers of the Ukrainian population, the Polish chief 
magistrates appointed special commissioners of Polish 
nationality, who arbitrarily entered the Ukrainians ;is 
Poles. On the manorial estates the lords of the manor 
were entrusted with specifying the nationality of all 



m 



their attendants, and as the lords of the manor were 
mostly Poles, the grossest falsifications in favour of 
the Poles are to be found in their returns. In the 
larger towns at last census forms were introduced, 
which had to be filled in by the master of the house. 
Neither servants nor sub-tenants entered their parti- 
culars in the columns, but this was done by the 
master of the house himself. That is why in larger 
towns falsifications so often occur in favour of the 
ruling, i. e. the Polish nation. 

The entire inadequacy of the official statistics 
of the "language spoken in every day life" for the 
proportion of the Polish to the Ukrainian population 
can be seen by a comparison of the results of scien- 
tific calculations after the ethnographical method of 
the forties and fifties of the past century with the 
returns of the official statistics of later censuses, and 
by a comparison of the official censuses with each 
other. 

The first three calculations after the ethnogra- 
phical method, which eliminate the Jews as a. se- 
parate nationality, show the following figures for 

Galicia. 

I. Ethnographical Calculation. 



Year 


Ukrainians 


Poles 


Germans 


Jews 


of Census 


0/ 


0/ 


% 


°/o 


1846 


501 


409 


20 


69 


1851 


501 


40-9 


20 


6-9 


1857 


460 


42 


25 


94 



One can see that the first ethnographical calcu- 
lations (1846, 1851), which were carried through 



81 



without any immediate influence of the Polish autho- 
rities in Galicia, show an absolute majority of 
Ukrainians even for the whole of Galicia (i. e. West 
and East Galicia together). Only in the third calcu- 
lation of 1857 the majority of the Ukrainians in Ga- 
licia is a relative one. 

From the year 1869 the principle of individual 
census is substituted for the ethnographical method 
in the official statistics. The second census of 1880 
already contains the column of "language spoken in 
every day life", the Jews being classified under the 
Polish, the Ukrainian and the German language, most 
of them naturally under the Polish, so that the Polish 
language in Galicia at once shows an absolute ma- 
jority. 

II. Official Statistical Returns according to "Language 
spoken in Every Day Life". 



Year 


Ukrainian 


Polish 


German 


of Census 






% 


1880 


429 


51 5 


55 


1890 


431 


533 


35 


1900 


422 


548 


29 


1910 


402 


585 


li 



Now both tables cannot easily be compared with 
each other, because in the first the Jews are elimi- 
nated as a separate nation, while in the second they 
are distributed among Poles, Germans and Ukrainians. 
For the third ethnographical survey of 1857 the eth- 
nographer Ficker has also made a calculation, in 
which the Jews are distributed among the nations of 



82 



Galicia according to the territories of their residence, 
and has got the following figures : Ukrainians (with 
Jews) 50-14%; Poles (with Jews) 47-07% ; Germans 
(with Jews) 272%. Only these figures can be com- 
pared with the returns of the official statistics, be- 
ginning from 1880. If we do so, we see that between 
1857 and 1880 the number of Ukrainians is said to 
have decreased from 50-14% to 42-9%, while at the 
same time the Poles are supposed to have increased 
from 47-07% to 51-5%, and the Germans from 272% 
to 5-5%. 

At these returns of the census of 1880 we are 
all the more astonished, if we consider that between 
1869, when the first census was taken, and 1880 
the number of Roman Catholics increased only by 
7-92%,, while at te same time the number of Uniats 
increased by 8-75%. It is a well known fact that 
in Galicia the Ukrainians almost through-out profess 
the Uniat creed, the Poles almost without exception 
the Roman Catholic creed. Thus the returns of the 
statistics of denominations are in a striking opposition 
to the statistics of languages. To rightly value the 
latter, (Table II) one has, therefore, to go back to 
the statistics of denominations. 



In 1869 the number of Roman Catholics was by 193.233 
„ 1880 „ „ „ „ „ „ „ 198-569 

„ 1890 „ „ , , 208.822 

„ 1900 „ „ „ „ „ „ „ 236.808 



- E .2 

v. 3 C 



Reduced to percent, the increase of the Uniats 
between 1869 and 1880 was by 0-83%, greater than 
of the Roman Catholics. Between 1880 and 1890, 
however, the increase of the Uniats is smaller by 



83 



0-01",, than of the Roman Catholics, and between 
1890 and 1900 it is smaller by 01 . 

If with this we compare the percentage of the 
languages, we see that in 1890 the increase of the 
Polish language amounted to about 15%. while the 
increase of the Ukrainian language does not much 
exceed 10%. Between 1890 and 1900 the Polish lan- 
guage increases by more than 13%) while the number 
of persons speaking the Ukrainian language rises 
only by 9 

This striking difference between the returns of 
the official statistics concerning the "languages spoken 
in every clay life" and the returns of the same sta- 
tistics concerning the denominations is evidently due 
to incorrect survey. What in former decades still used 
to occur by way of exception, that single persons 
of Uniat creed, by reason of their public or private 
service, professed the Polish nationality, does not 
occur any more at present. On the contrary, both 
national camps in Galicia have so distinctly marked 
the frontiers between each other in the last decades, 
that renegades, who wanted to fling off their Ukra- 
inian nationality, always had the courage of changing 
their religions, too, and becoming Roman Catholics, 
so that at present it may be frankly said, that the 
type of "gente Rut hen i, natione Poloni" has died 
out altogether. So there can be no doubt to any ini- 
tiated person, that the long forgotten "Un Ukrainien, 
gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus", who appears as 
the author of the article". "La Pologne, 1'Ukraine et 
la Lithuanie" in 'Le Temps' of February l sl , 1919, 
is a true Pole with the Polish ideology of a ruling 

9> 



84 



nation (see chapter II.), who surely exchanged the 
Uniat for the Roman Catholic creed a long time ago, 
or never before professed the Uniat creed at all. 
(Indeed he will look out in vain for another Ukra- 
inian, who would in the present time uphold the 
opinion maintained by him.) 

One example will suffice to clear up the Method 
of falsification in the censuses of Galicia. The census 
of 1880 returns for the city of Lemberg: 

1. According to denominations: 

Roman Catholics 58.602 

Uniats 17.496 

Jews 30.961 

2. According to "language spoken in every 
day life": 

Poles 91.870 

Ukrainians 6.277 

Germans 8.911 

If we combine these figures with each other, we 
come to know in which way the number of 91.870 
Poles in Lemberg was got in the census. 

First of all from the number of Roman 

Catholics 58.602 

the number of the Germans must be subtracte d . 8.911 

Thus we get the sum A of . 49.691 

Then from the number of Uniats .... 17.496 

we subtract the number of Ukrainians . . . 6.277 

So we get the sum B of . 11.219 

Lastly the sum C of the Jews must be taken 

into consideration 30.961 



85 



Now if we cast up the sums A+BH C, we get 

A 49.691 

B 11.219 

C 30.961 

the total of 91.871 

i. e. the same figure as the number of the Pules in 
the census returns. 

Evidently the following method was applied: 
From the number of Roman Catholics the number 
of the Germans was subtracted, but the number of 
the Jews was added in return and besides two thirds 
of theUniats had to add to the number of thePoles. 
This process frequently recurs mutatis mutandis in 
the censuses of all larger towns. It is obvious that 
such a method cannot be fit to give the correct nu- 
merical proportion between the Poles and the Ukra- 
inians. 

Therefore another way has to be found to come 
nearer to truth. While the statistics according to 
"language spoken in every day life" cannot be used 
for ascertaining the nationalities, the official statistics 
of denominations is much more fit for the purpose 
of estimating the true numerical proportion between 
the Poles and the Ukrainians. In fact the Ukrainians 
of Oalicia have been Uniats from ancient times, while 
the Poles on principle always professed the Roman 
Catholic religion. 

Some corrections will certainly have to be 
allowed, but they must be made on the expense of 
the Poles rather than of the Ukrainians. In fact there 
are by far more Ukrainians of Roman Catholic de- 
nomination in (jalicia than Poles of Uniat deno- 



86 



initiation, because the Roman Catholic clergy are 
carrying on a far-reaching propaganda among the 
Ukrainian population, but the neophytes seldom go 
the length of giving up their nationality and going 
over to the Poles ; on the other hand it was men- 
tioned above, that in these latter days there are no 
persons professing the Uniat religion, who might 
.rightly be considered as Poles. Besides, from the 
total number of Roman Catholics of Qalicia those 
Germans have to be subtracted, who profess the 
Roman Catholic creed. Finally the Galician statistics 
of denominations are not quite free from objection, 
and especially in the last decades, where the falsi- 
fication of the statistics of languages took larger and 
larger dimensions, gross errors are to be found in 
them at times, all the more since the tendency of re- 
ducing the number of the Uniats or giving quite in- 
accurate returns, is prevalent indeed among the census 
organizations. 

Leaving this tendency out of the question, the 
statistics of denominations, in spite of their short- 
comings, are the only official basis, from which one 
has to start, to get an approximative notion of the 
numerical proportion of the Ukrainians to the Poles. 
But as for this purpose one cannot restrict oneself 
to the general returns of the census, but has to take 
into consideration the numerical proportion in the 
single communities, nothing is left but to go back to 
the census of 1900, because only of this census 
special returns for the places of Galicia and.Bukowina 
are at our disposal, which is not the case with the 
latest census of 1910. Besides, the returns of the 
census of 1900 deserve to be given preference to the 



87 



census of 1910, because for the Ukrainian territories 
of Russia we can avail ourselves only of the census 
dt 1897, the returns of which can be more adequately 
compared with the returns of the former than of the 
census of 1910. 

So the statistics of denominations according 
to the census of 1900 will be taken as basis of 
the following arguments, other statistical evidence 
being referred to only by way of exception. In our 
arguments we shall confine ourselves to the Ukrai- 
nian national territory. 

In order not to weary the reader, we shall content 
ourselves witli shortly sketching general outlines 
without giving a detailed description of the frontiers. 

The Ukrainian national territory in Galicia com- 
prises, first of all, the whole of East Galicia as far 
as the river San; West of the San several communities 
are situated on the left bank of the river along its 
lower and middle course. Towards South all com- 
munities of the district of Dobromil and Lisko belong 
to the coherent national territory of the Ukrainians. 
To this a long strip of Ukrainian laud is connected 
in the South-West along the Carpathian Mountains 
as far as the last Ukrainian community in the district 
of Nowy Targ, which is called Shlakhtova. Here the 
ethnographical frontiers cross several communities 
and do not coincide with the frontiers of the political 
districts. 

The area amounts to 55.300 square kilometres. 
On the coherent national territory the Ukrainians live 
in 59 political districts or parts of districts, the city 
of Lemberg forming a separate political district. 



Leaving at present LembergCity and the Environs 
of Lemberg out of the question, the Ukrainians form 
an absolute majority in all districts or parts of the 
districts. In the City of Lemberg the Ukrainians were 
in the minority with 18 - 3 n „ and in the Environs of 
Lemberg with 49'3" „. 

On the whole there are only 17 districts or 
parts of districts, where the Poles form more than 
25% Of the population. They are the following 
districts: 

Sanok (part) 1.098-0 square kilometres Poles 30'0% 

„ 3P4% 
„ 30-8% 

„ 27-1% 
„ 32'7", ,, 
„ 29-8% 

„ 27-2"/,, 
95-3°/ 

„ 27-07,, 

„ 27-5% 

■ 27-6"/,, 

„ 250' ,, 

„ 26-3 

„ 37-7% 

„ 33-67,-, 

„ 29-5% 

„ 30-47o 

In the other districts and parts of districts the 
percentage of the Poles varies from Pl% or 4-4"/,, 
respectively to 23 - 97 - 



Brzozow „ 


95-2 , 


Przemysl „ 


9391 , 


Jaroslau 


861-2 , 


Cieszanow 


1.1362 , 


Mosciska 


754-6 , 


Sambor 


948- 1 


Rudki 


7030 , 


Brzezany 


1.161-9 , 


Podhajce 


1.060-0 , 


Buczacz 


1.192-7 , 


Czortkow 


694-2 , 


Husiatyn 


872-9 


Trembowla 


6973 , 


Skalat 


917-0 


Tarnopol 


1.164-0 


Zbaraz 


739-6 , 



89 

The whole Ukrainian territory in the 50 districts 
or parts of districts comprises 3.759 inhabited places, 
among them only 352 places (including the City of 
Lemberg) with an absolute majority of Poles. The 
Germans have an absolute majority in 77 places, the 
Jews in 43 places. There are, besides, 114 places in 
which the numbers of Jews, Ukrainians, and Poles 
compete with each other, but none of these nationa- 
lities forms an absolute majority; among them the 
Ukrainians have a relative majority over the Poles in 
71 places. Of all 3759 inhabited places of the whole 
Ukrainian territory in Galicia the Ukrainians have 
an absolute majority in 3173 places. 

All these figures, which are taken from the sta- 
tistics of denominations of the census on 1900, prove 
sufficiently that notwithstanding the considerable per- 
centage of the Polish population, especially in the 
environment of Lemberg and in Galician Podolia, the 
Ukrainian territory in Galicia forms an ethnographically 
coherent body. 

The Poles, however, refer to the official statistics 
of languages of the census of 1910. (Why the Ukrai- 
nians refuse the stalistics of languages, was already 
explained above. To the census of 1910 they object 
all the more, since from the records of the Austrian 
Chamber of Deputies, especially from the numerous 
interpellations of Ukrainian deputies it can be 
seen, with which violence this census was carried 
through against the Ukrainian population.) Accor- 
ding to the returns of the statistics of languages of 
1910 5 districts in Hast Galicia show a majo 
of Poles. 



90 



Language spoken in every day life. 
Census of 1910. 



District 


Ukrainian 

0/ 


Polish 

0/ 

/o 


German 

% 


Lemberg (Environs) 

Skalat 

Trembowla .... 


366 
44-6 
477 
48 
480 


616 
52-2 
520 
51-4 
517 


18 
22 
63 
04 
01 



According to the census of 1880 all these districts 
still showed a majority for the Ukrainian language. 
In the census of 1890 the district of Skalat for the 
first time returned 49'8"/„ for the Polish against a 
minority of 48"5 fl /o for the Ukrainian language. In 1900 
the picture changed: The district of Skalat had again 
a minority for the Polish language, while the Environs 
of Lemberg showed a small majority in favour of the 
Polish language. In the census of 1910 all of a sudden 
the 5 districts named above returned a majority for 
the Polish language. 

But the difficulty is that the statistics of deno- 
minations of the census of 1910 lead to entirely 
different results and downright reduce the value of the 
above figures, concerning the languages, to nothing. 
The statistics of denominations in these districts 
return the following figures : 



91 



IV. Denominations. Census of 1910. 



District 


Uniats 


Roman 
Catholics 


Jews 


Lemberg (Environs) 

Przemysl 

Skalat 

Trembowla . . . 


45-9 
500 
50-3 
535 
51-5 


434 
35-8 
366 
325 
394 


87 
141 
132 
139 

904 



To infer a majority of Poles in the districts named 
above from these figures, is certainly a very bold 
enterprise. But the proportion is in fact much more 
in favour of the Ukrainians, if we consider that the 
organs of the Polish administration in the very sur- 
veying of denominations were intent on reducing the 
number of the Uniats. So it is needless to refute the 
reference to an alleged majority of Poles in these 
districts. 

There only remains the City ol Lemberg. which 
according to the statistics of denominations, too, 
shows an absolute majority of Poles. On closer exa- 
mination, however, this majority is not so certain 
as it appears. According to the census of 1900 the 
following figures are returned for the City of Lemberg: 

Entire population .... 159.877 

Roman Catholics 82.828 51% 

Uniats 29.327 - 183 

Jews 44.258 = 28-5 

Others 4.464= 22 



92 



According to languages: 

Polish 120.634 

Ukrainian 15.159 

German 20.409. 

In the statistics of denominations those returned 
in the column of "Others" are chiefly Protestants. 
As they are throughout Germans, we are not wrong 
in reckoning more than half of the Germans among 
the Roman Catholics. Granting even, that about 
5000 Jews in Lemberg entered their names in the 
column of the German language, which does not 
seem very probable, we get the sum of 11.935 Germans 
professing the Roman Catholic religion. If we subtract 
this figure from the figure of the Roman Catholics 
(82.828), the sum of 70.893 Roman Catholics is left 
for the Poles, i. e. only 44-3" .',, of the entire po- 
pulation. 

The untrustworthiness of the official statistics has 
induced Ukrainian scholars to recast them judicially, 
in order to obtain well established results. Recently 
Dr. T o m a sh i ws kyj, lecturer at the University of 
Lemberg, undertook this task and, after a critical 
recast of the whole statistical material, has got the 
following round figures for the Ukrainian territory 
in Galicia: 

Entire population (1910) . 5,200.000 

Ukrainians 3,850.000 = 74% 

Poles 630.000 = 12% 

Germans 65.000- 1% 

Jews 640.000= 12%. 

These figures show, that East Galicia is indeed 
a territory not so purely Ukrainian as the French 



' 93 



departments with their overwhelming French majo 
rity, but that it is not inferior to many other terri- 
tories, e. g. in Poland, as to the percentage of the 
permanent nation. 

But before we are going to speak of the Ukrai- 
nian territory outside the frontiers of the former 
Galicia, we must define our attitude regarding the 
latest demand of the Poles. The Poles have of late 
been declaring the Bug-line to be the frontier of their 
national territory in Galicia. This line which follows 
the Bug, a tributary of the Vistula, from its head, 
is neither founded on history nor on ethnography. It 
is not historical, because it never played any part in 
history; it is not ethnographical, since it cuts off 
more than two thirds of the Ukrainian territory for 
the Poles ; nor is it a geographical frontier, because 
it follows the Bug only in the North East, and from 
there to the Carpathians is entirely without any 
foundation. But the Poles insist on the Bug line 
only to support, on the one hand, their (likewise 
unfounded) claims to the whole Kholm district (in 
the Russian part of Poland), on the other hand to 
take possession of the City of Lemberg and its 
environs as well as of the purely Ukrainian oil-terri- 
tory of Drohobycz. But as was proved above, these 
imperialist appetites are entirely without any foundation. 

B. North of the point where the river San, bel 
it flows into the Vistula, touches the frontier bet- 
ween Galicia and the Russian part of Poland for the 
first time, the Ukrainian territory extends on the soil of 
the former Russian Empire, and the first country that 
belongs to the Ukrain an national territory, is the 



94 



Kholm district, and the territory South and East of 
Khohn, i. e. Volhynia. 

Here we meet with the Russian official statistics. We 
can only refer to the Russian census of 1897. 
Here the Ukrainians are officially called "Little Rus- 
sians". As this census was taken by the official 
Russian circles, who were ill-disposed towards the 
Ukrainians, and the census in Russia was rarely able 
to give objective, exact, and reliable results owing to 
the unequal intelligence, and still more to the unequal 
carefulness of the census officials, it can easily be 
proved on a merely superficial critical inspection, 
that by the census of 1897 the number of the Ukrai- 
nians was considerably reduced in favour of the 
Russians (Great Russians). The grossest falsifications 
occur in the larger towns. 

But there is no such corrective for the Russian 
official statistics of nationalities as the statistics of 
denominations in Galicia, where the Uniat creed is 
so characteristic of the Ukrainian nation. Official 
Russia does not know the Uniat creed, for all traces 
of it have been effaced by force, and the orthodox 
faith is professed by both, Russians and Ukrainians 
alike. The Poles in Russia have kept their Roman 
Catholic religion. So nothing is left but to take the 
official statistics of nationalities of 1897 as a basis, 
although-with certain reservations. 

Yet just for the Khohn territory the proportion 
of denominations is of great importance. 

From a historical point of view the Kholm terri- 
tory was most closely connected with the Ukrainian 
part of Galicia. Under the Romanowitchs, till the 
14 th century, it formed an integrant part of the Galician- 



95 



Volhynian Empire, called the kingdom of Halitch. 
Though it early came under Polish rule, it has always 
kept its ethnographical pureness as a Ukrainian terri- 
tory, although the influences of the Polish elements 
and of the Roman Catholic religion made itself felt. 
The great masses of the Ukrainian population resisted 
all Polonizing tendencies; but when under the Polish 
rule a union of the Orthodox Church with Rome was 
started, the larger part of the Ukrainian population 
of the Kholm territory, like those of Galicia, embraced 
the Uniat faith. After the partition of Poland the 
Kholm territory came under Russian rule and Russia, 
as was mentioned above, did not want to recognize 
the Uniat faith. So religious persecutions commenced 
in the Kholm territory, and their result was, that a 
large part of the Ukrainian population under Russian 
pressure embraced the orthodox faith, and a smaller 
part under the influence of the Roman Catholic clergy, 
who set in with their propaganda, preferred to turn 
Roman Catholic. Nevertheless most of the Ukrainians, 
who became Roman Catholics, remained faithful to 
their national traditions, and it is certainly sheer 
arrogance of the Poles, to count the permanent 
population of the Kholm territory among the Polish 
nationality, only because part of them arc Roman 
Catholics. 

The Polish claims to the Kholm territory are 
only justified inasmuch, as in the West of the Kholm 
government they have actually displaced the former 
Ukrainian element by a permanent settlement of 
Polish peasants. The Polish-Jewish majority in the 
towns can be no guide for the demarcation of the 
ethnographical frontiers (see I s ' chapter). 



96 



According to the official census of 1897 the 
Ukrainians have an absolute majority in 6 districts 
of the Kholm government (Ukrainians 52"6%j Russians 
3-7%, Poles 24-4%, Jews 15-3%), therefore all these 
6 districts must me included in the Ukrainian national 
territory. Only in two South Western districts, Bilgoraj 
and Zamosc, the Poles are in the majority, but there 
is a great number of Ukrainian communities, which 
is closely coherent with the Ukrainian national territory. 
Therefore all these Ukrainian communities, ethno- 
graphically connected with the coherent Ukrainian 
territory, must be incorporated in the same. 

So the boundary line between the Poles and 
the Ukrainians in the Kholm territory starts from the 
point, where the river San approaches the former 
frontiers between Galicia and the Russian part of 
Poland, runs over Tarnogrod, Bilgoraj, Shtchere- 
breshyn, Zamosc, Krasnostav, Lubartov, Radyn, Lukov, 
Sokolov, Dorohytchyn, Bielsk, and reaches the river 
Narev in the government of Grodno. Here the frontiers 
between the Polish and Ukrainian territories meet 
with those of the White Russian territory and here 
the Northern frontier of Ukraina commences. 

If this boundary line is drawn as was just 
specified, there can be no doubt that the claims of 
the Poles to Volhynia, which is situated South-West 
of the Kholm territory, are quite unfounded. The 
census returns the following figures for Volhynia : 
Population 2,989.482, among them 70" 1% Ukrainians, 
3-5% Russians, 6-2% Poles, 13-2% Jews, 57% Ger- 
mans, 0-9 fl / n Czechs. So the Polish claim to the Bug 
line (see above) is without any foundation, all the 
more since their frontiers in the Kholm territory at 



'i7 



most reach the Vepr, a tributary of the Bug, and 
only near Zamost form an enclave on the other side 
of the Vepr. 

C. The Northern frontier of Ukraina starts 
from the White Russian territory in the West. Here 
first the so-called Podlashe on the territory of the 
former government of Grodno comes into question. 
This territory, too, is claimed by the Poles ; with 
how little right, is shown by the following figures : 
V. Russian Census of 1897. 



District 


Entire 
Population 


i 

2 = 

D'S 


c 
.2 


X 


u 

o 


> 








70 




% 


% 


Bielsk . . 


164,441 


391 


59 


4-9 


34-9 


14'9 


Brest . . . 


218,432 


644 


99 


— 


39 


20-8 


Kobryn . . 


184453 


796 


40 


— 


22 


137 



The above figures prove, that the territory of the 
three named districts of the Government of Grodno 
belongs to the Ukrainian national territory. All of 
them form the frontier-line between the Ukrainians 
and the White Russians. 

This frontier-line continues towards East and 
touches the former government of Minsk, in which 
the whole district of Pinsk (74 - 3'V(, Ukrainians) and 
the Southern part of the district of Mozyr (794 
Ukrainians) belong to the Ukrainian territory. Here 
the frontier-line runs chiefly along the river Pripet, 
turns to the South only near Mozyr, touching the 
Volhynian frontier for a short distance and reaching 



the Dniepr at the mouth of the Pripet. From here 
the frontier sweeps round towards the North and 
follows the Dniepr up-stream as far as the mouth 
of the river Soz. From here it continues a little 
towards North East, and forming some sinuosities 
reaches the administrative frontier between the go- 
vernments of Mohilew and Tchernigov. Here the 
vicinity of the White Russians ends and that of the 
Russians begins. 

D. To give an exact description of the ethno- 
graphical frontier between Ukraina and the Russian 
territory is not an easy problem, and chiefly in the 
North it is difficult to state, without close investi- 
gations being made on the spot, where the Ukrainian 
territory ends and the coherent Russian territory 
begins, all the more since the official Russian 
statistics are made much in favour of the ruling 
nation. It must be observed, besides, that the terri- 
tories in question were not colonized by a dense 
population before the 17 th century. The colonists 
came partly from Ukraina, partly from the Russian 
territories, and their settlements are situated side by 
side, mostly separated from each other, so' that to 
the present day a purely Ukrainian village touches 
a purely Russian one, and the number of ethno- 
graphical islands on both sides of the eventual line 
of demarcation will be very large. 

According to the official Russian census the 
government of Tchernigov comprises 11 districts 
with an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians (91*9 p /o 
Ukrainians, 3 - 2% Russians, 4'6% Jews, 0-3% Ger- 
mans). These undoubtedly belong to the coherent 
Ukrainian national territory. But there are still 4 di- 



99 



stricts with a majority of Russians. In these 4 districts, 
however, leaving the unreliableness of the, returns of 
the official Russian statistics out of the question, 
there is so large a population of Ukrainian nationality, 
who partly live on a coherent territory, partly separated 
from each other, moreover the Russian population of 
these districts has been so closely connected with 
Ukraina by their history (all these territories were 
under the command of Colonel Ivan N etc hay at 
the time of the Hetman Chmelnyckyj): that the 
elimination of these 4 districts from the Ukrainian 
territory would meet with the opposition even of the 
Russian majority. Therefore the Republic of the 
Ukrainian People claims the whole government of 
Tchernigov, including the 4 districts with the official 
majority of Russians, but they are ready at any time 
to take the chance of a plebiscitum in these 4 districts. 

From there the Northern frontier traverses the 
two large governments of Kursk and Voronesh. In the 
government of Kursk three districts with a majority 
(if Ukrainians belong to the Ukrainian national terri- 
tory: Putyvl 52'5%, Hrayvoron 52-8° ;l „ Novo-Oskol 
51%- Besides, the Southern part of the district of 
Sudza (70 % Ukrainians) and parts of the districts of 
Rylsk (33% Ukrainians), Korotcha (35% Ukrainians) 
and Bielograd (24% Ukrainians) come into question. 

In the government of Kursk the frontier-line running 
in an Eastern direction reaches the river Oskol and 
enters the territory of the government of Voronesh. 
Here, too, the frontier-line continues towards East as 
far as the point, where it reaches the Don for the 
first time. For a short distance the Don forms the 
frontier of the Ukrainian territory towards South-East. 



100 



The frontier-line leaves the stream at the mouth of 
the Ikorets, sweeps towards North-East and finally 
reaches the river Khoper on the territory of the Don 
Cossacks. Novokhopersk is the farthest point of the 
Northern frontier of Ukraina and the starting-point of 
the Eastern frontier of the Ukrainian territory. In the 
government of Voronesh 4 districts have a large 
Ukrainian majority; of the district of Pavlovsk the 
Southern part belongs to the coherent Ukrainian 
territory. According to the census of 1897 the whole 
Ukrainian territory of this government is inhabited by 
a population of 76'2% Ukrainians and only 22-6% 
Russians. 

E. The Eastern frontier of the Ukrainian 
national territory in the former Russian Empire starts 
from Novokhopersk (in the government of Voronesh) 
and runs in a Southern direction as far as Novo- 
tcherkask (in the government of the Don Cossacks). 
It follows the river Khoper from the start, reaches 
the Don for the second time at the mouth of the 
Khoper, passes over to the right bank of the Don, 
to cross the Don for the third time at Novotcherkask. 
An absolute majority-of Ukrainians in the government 
of the Don Cossacks is to be found in the rural 
part of two districts: Rostov (52%) and Taganrog 
(69%). If the population of the two district capitals, 
according to the official returns, is included, there is 
still a large relative majority of Ukrainians in these 
districts (48-4% Ukrainians against 42-3% Russians). 
Besides, the Western part of the Donetz district (40% 
Ukrainians) comes into question. 

By the districts of Rostov and Taganrog the 
Ukrainian national territory is connected with Cau- 



101 



casia. Here the Ukrainian element is increasing from 
year to year and thus the Ukrainian territory on one 
place extends as far as the Caspian Sea. According 
to the census of 1879 already the Ukrainian settle- 
ments stretched in a large circle South and East of 
Rostov and at present they comprise wellnigh the 
whole of North Caucasia with the exception of small 
strips along the Caspian Sea. To this territory belongs 
the province of Kuban (with 36'2 " ;'„ Ukrainians 
against 305% Russians) and the government of 
Stavropol (with 50-87,, Ukrainians against 457% 
Russians). But the returns of the census of 1897 are 
not quite reliable and it can be stated with certainty 
that at present the percentage of the permanent 
Ukrainian population is by far greater than according 
to the above-mentioned census. 

In North Caucasia ends the Eastern frontier of 
the Ukrainian territory. 

F. The Southern frontier of the Ukrainian 
national territory begins near the Eastern coast of 
the Caspian Sea and at first the river Terek forms 
the frontier-line. It continues towards West through 
the Terek and Kuban provinces and the government 
of Black Sea, to reach the coast of the Black Sea 
between Tuapse and Sotchi. From there the frontier- 
line of Ukraina as far as the delta of the Danube 
is marked by the coasts of the Black Sea and the 
Sea of Azov. 

Towards West the most important Southern 
border-territory of Ukraina is the government of 
Taurida with the Crimean peninsula. Here the 
Ukrainians, according to the census of 1897, form 



102 



only a relative majority (42%). beside 28% Russians, 
13% Tartars, over 5%, Germans, nearly 5% Jews, 
3% Bulgarians, 1% Armenians. An absolute majority 
of Ukrainians is to be found in three districts : Dnip- 
rovsk (73-6%), Berdyansk (58-8%), Melitopol (54-9%) - 
besides considerable minorities in two districts : Eupa- 
toria (26%) and Perekop (23%), where the Ukrai- 
nians inhabit the northern parts of the districts. So 
the whole continental part of the government of 
Taurida and the northern part of the Crimea belong 
unquestionably to the coherent Ukrainian national 
territory. If the Crimea is taken as a whole, no nation 
has an absolute majority. Only a relative majority is 
formed by the Tartars together with other Moham- 
medans. Among the Russians all visitors of the 
watering places of the Crimea are included : so from 
their number the true percentage of the permanent 
Russian population cannot be inferred. Next in 
number to the Russians are the Ukrainians, and be- 
sides a considerable percentage of foreign colonists. 
In the same measure, however, as the Tartars are 
leaving the country to settle in Turkey, the territory 
and the number of the Ukrainians is more and more 
increasing in the Southern part of the Crimea, too, 
so that the time is not far when the Ukrainian ele- 
ment will be able to consider the whole Crimea as 
their national territory. Those Mohammedans however, 
who wish to remain in the Crimea, cannot easily 
form a political organism of their own of the Southern 
part of the peninsula, and owing to a thousand years 
of their political relations with Ukraina they are likely 
to be willing at any moment to join the Ukrainian 
Republic. So the whole government of Taurida and 



103 



with it the whole Crimean peninsula will have to 
be included in the Ukrainian national territory. 

West of the government of Taurida the govern- 
ment of Yekaterinoslav is situated. Here the Ukrai- 
nians form 69"/,, of the entire population, beside 17% 
Russians, 5% Jews, 4% Germans, 2% Greeks, 1% 
White Russians, 1% Poles, 1% Tartars. In the single 
districts the percentage of Ukrainians varies between 
94 and 83% in the country. In the large towns 
naturally a considerable percentage of foreign nations 
is returned ; thus the district of Yekaterinoslav, ex- 
cepting the capital, has 74% Ukrainians, while if the 
capital is included, only 56%, Ukrainians are living 
there beside 21% Russians, 13% Jews, 6% Germans, 
and 2% Poles. 

A similar proportion of nationalities can be ob- 
served in the government of Kherson, where the 
large towns, such as Odessa and Nikolayev, con- 
siderably depress the percentage of the permanent 
Ukrainian population. It is due to this fact that the 
census of 1897 returns hardly 54% Ukrainians in the 
government of Kherson. Yet in most districts of this 
government the Ukrainians form an overwhelming 
majority, between 63% and 88% in the country, in 
the other districts they have a relative majority, such 
as in the rural part of the district of Odessa 47 
(including the town population only 33%). The en- 
tire population of the government of Kherson consists 
of 54% Ukrainians, 21% Russians, besides 11% Jews, 
over 1% Poles, over 4% Germans, over 5% Ruma- 
nians, and more than 1% Bulgarians and Greeks. 
The population of the city of Odessa is composed 
of many nationalities. Predominant among them are 



104 



the Russians and the Jews, while the Ukrainians form 
only the eleventh part of the population ; besides 
there are Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Poles, 
Rumanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians and others. 
In Nikolayev the Ukrainians form only one thirteenth, 
in Kherson one fifth, and in Elizabetgrad one fourth 
of the population. Only in 8 smaller towns the Ukrai- 
nians have a majority over the Russians. These figures 
are based on the official statistical returns, which 
especially in the larger towns considerably reduce 
the number of the Ukrainians in favour of the Russians. 
Nevertheless the whole government of Yekaterinoslav 
as well as the government of Kherson belong to the 
coherent Ukrainian national territory. 

G. In Bessarabia the Ukrainian territory is 
bounded by the Rumanian territory. Here the frontier- 
line is very irregular and runs towards North West 
as far as the frontier of the Austrian Empire. Many 
Rumanian enclaves are situated on the coherent Ukrai- 
nian territory, while on the other hand many Ukrai- 
nian enclaves (over 145.000 Ukrainians) are to be 
found on the Rumanian national territory. 

For the coherent Ukrainian territory only two 
districts of Bessarabia come into question : the district 
of Akkerman with a relative Ukrainian majority 
(about 27% Ukrainians, 10% Russians, 5% Jews, 
16% Germans, over 16% Rumanians, 21% Bulgarians, 
4% Turks), and the district of Khotin with an abso- 
lute Ukrainian majority (over 53% Ukrainians, over 
6% Russians, about 16% Jews, about 24% Rumanians). 
The frontier-line runs over Ismail, over the mouth of 
the Dniester, then up the Dniester as far as Du- 
bossary, to reach the watershed between the Pruth 



105 



and the Dniester and to leave Bessarabia at Novo- 
sielitze. 

This is the Ukrainian national territory within 
the former Russian Empire. Only those governments, 
which are situated along the frontier-line, were made 
the subject of our discussion (sections B—G) But 
other governments, too, which are situated in the 
heart of this territory, come into question. Besides 
Volhynia, which was spoken of already, there are the 
governments of Podolia (adjoining the Galician part 
of Podolia), Kieff, Poltava, and Kharkov. All 
these governments have an absolute Ukrainian ma- 
jority and belong as a whole to the coherent territory 
of the Ukrainian people. In Podolia, according to the 
census of 1897 the population consisted of 81 "/ 
Ukrainians, besides 3% Russians, over 2% Poles, 
and over 12% Jews. In the government of Kieff the 
official returns show 79 - 2% Ukrainians, 5 - 9% Russians, 
1-9% Poles, and 12i°/„ Jews. In the city of Kieff the 
Ukrainians form more than one fifth of the population. 
The government of Poltava has the largest absolute 
majority of Ukrainians: 95%, besides 4% Jews and 
1% Russians. In the government of Kharkov the 
Ukrainians come up to nearly 81% of the entire po- 
pulation, the Russian percentage being about 18%. 
With the only exception of the capital of Kharkov, 
where the Ukrainians come up to one fourth of the 
population, the Ukrainians have a considerable ma- 
jority over the Russians in all other towns of the 
district. 

// In Bukovina the coherent territory of the 
Ukrainian people comprises 4 districts: Kotzman, 
Zastawna, Washkoutz, Wiznitz, and parts of 



106 



6 districts, viz of Czernowitz, Kimpolung, Radautz, 
Sereth, Suczawa, and Storozynetz. The frontier- 
line, which as an immediate continuation of the 
Bessarabian frontier-line separates the Ukrainian from 
the Rumanian national territory, runs over Novosielitze 
to the West as far as the immediate neighbourhood 
of Czernowitz, turns towards South East to the 
frontier between Austria and Rumania, and reaches 
the city of Sereth and the river Suczawa. From here 
the frontier-line sweeps round to the North as far 
as the watershed between the Pruth and the Sereth 
basins, but soon turns to the South and South West 
again over Storozynetz and Kirlibaba, where it reaches 
the frontier of Hungary. 

According to the Austrian census of 1900 the 
population on the coherent Ukrainian territory consi- 
sted of 69% Ukrainians, 0'8% Russians, 4i% Poles, 
15-6% Jews, 5% Germans, 4'8% Rumanians, and 
0-4% Magyars. 

/. The end of the Southern frontier of the 
Ukrainian national territory is situated in Hungary. 
The frontier-line runs from the Galician frontier near 
Kirlibaba to the West as far as the point where the 
river Ruskova falls into the Vishova (Viso). Then it 
turns to the North West as far as Shiget. Here it 
sweeps round towards North and again towards 
West, follows the river Theiss as far as the town 
of Vyshkov (Visk), and reaches the towns of 
Ternanka Bartatsha. This is the end of the frontier 
between the Ukrainians and the Rumanians, and 
here begins the frontier between Ukrainians and 
the Magyars. 



107 



It runs to the West in many sinuosities over 
Ardiv (Feketeardo) to Kerestur (Tiszakeresztur), and 
from there to Munkacs, continuing towards South 
West as far as the town of Sniatyno (Izsmyele). From 
there it turns to the West again as far as the point 
where the river Stare falls into the Latorcza, and 
sweeps to the North as far as Ungvar. 

Here begins the Ukrainian-Slovak frontier, 
which is very irregular. From Ungvar it turns to the 
North and approaches the Carpathians, which form 
the frontier between Hungary and Galicia. Near 
Lublau the frontier crosses the river Foprad and 
reaches the Ukrainian territories of Galicia mostly 
advanced to the West, which are inhabited by the 
Lemkes. This is the end of the Southern frontier of 
the entire territory of the Ukrainian people, which 
extends on the whole from the Caucasus to the 
Beskid mountains in West Galicia. 

The larger part of the Ukrainian territory in 
Hungary is situated in the Carpathian mountains and 
adjoins the Ukrainian territory of Galicia with its 
population of Ukrainian mountaineers, who form the 
majority of the inhabitants of the Carpathians. It 
comprises the three Northern quarters of the county 
of Marmaros, the North Eastern part of the county 
of Ugocsa, two thirds of the county of Bereg, the 
Northern half of the county of Ung, the Northern 
border districts of the counties of Zemplen and Saros, 
and the North Eastern districts of the county of Zips. 

The Hungarian official statistical returns, which 
are no more trustworthy than those of Galicia, show 
470.000 Ukrainians in 1910, and this figure may boldly 
be raised to 500.000 at least, to get an approximate 



108 



notion of the number of the Ukrainian population of 
Hungary. 

The above description restricted itself only to 
the coherent territory of the Ukrainian people. But 
the Ukrainians are also settled outside their national 
territory, in numerous enclaves, which are scattered 
over large parts of the globe. The largest Ukrainian 
colonization is to be found in the East, i. e. in the 
Don territory as far as the Volga, and in the whole 
of Siberia. These territories, according to the Russian 
census of 1897, are inhabited by about 1,100.000 
Ukrainians. More than half a million Ukrainians are 
scattered in small groups all over the United States 
of America. Most of them are miners and factory- 
workers, chiefly in Pennsylvania. In Canada the 
Ukrainians have founded many agricultural colonies. 
The number of the Ukrainians of Canada exceeds. 
200.000. In Brazil, too, many Ukrainian agricultural 
colonies are to be found. Their population exceeds 
60.000 and forms an important element of civilization 
among the Lusobrazili. The Ukrainian population of 
the globe can be estimated at 40 millions. 



109 



V. The Ukrainian National Wealth. 

It results already from our preceding descriptions, 
that the Ukrainian people has all the characteristic 
properties of a nation, and that the coherent Ukrai- 
nian territory is fit for the foundation of a large po- 
litical organism. 

But as the Republic of the Ukrainian People 
claims to be recognized by all states at the conclusion 
of peace, it shall be finally proved, that the recog- 
nition of the independence of the Ukrainian state is 
to the interest of Europe as well as of America. All 
states, and especially the Allied Powers, have an 
eminent interest that the Ukrainian national wealth 
should form an object of international traffic and not, 
as in the past, be withdrawn from international traffic 
by the Russian Empire. 

Ukraina is a country abounding in natural pro- 
duce, but was not rightly valued in the past, from 
a political as well as from an economical point of 
view. Not only politically but also economically Ukraina 
forms the connecting link between the East and the 
West, and only if she is independent from Russia, 
she can open her riches to the whole civilized world, 
all the more since only then she can carry into effect 
her intention of concluding commercial treaties on 
the broadest basis with all other states. 



110 



The Ukrainian national wealth is large. The 
country is one of the most fertile of Europe and has 
an abundance of minerals of all kinds. 

Agriculture is the chief occupation of the Ukrai- 
nian population, to which nearly nine tenths of the 
Ukrainian people apply themselves. Three quarters of 
the soil consist of humus, and also the rest of the 
soil is of a rather good quality. 

Next to Russia, Ukraina has the largest arable 
territory in Europe: it comes up to 45 million hectares. 
The arable soil of Ukraina forms 53% of the entire 
surface of the country. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century the total 
annual agricultural produce amounted on the average 
to 150 million metrical quintals, counting only the 
wheat-, rye-, and barley-crops. In this respect Ukraina 
exceeds all countries of Europe. 

There is no doubt that this production can be 
considerably increased, if Ukraina will appear as an 
independent party in international trade. Modern tilling 
implements and machines will at once be generally 
used, if the other countries will offer the products 
of their factories for sale in Ukraina. At present al- 
ready farmers are paying incredible prices for agri- 
cultural implements of all kinds. 

Forest-culture is not very highly developed in 
Ukraina. 

The woodlands of Ukraina come up to about 
13% of the entire surface of the country. The prin- 
cipal cause of this small percentage is that Ukraina 
comprises large parts of the steppes of Eastern Eu- 
rope. It may also be found in the careless working 
of the woods by the Poles and Russians. Thus for 



Ill 



example the wooded area of Galieia was reduced 
by 2000 square kilometres, i. e. 3% of the entire 
superficies of the country, in the course of the 19 th 
century, owing to the famous Polish misadministration. 
The mountainous regions have the highest, the 
steppes the lowest, percentage of forests. The Ukrai- 
nian territory of North East Hungary has about 40% 
forest area, in the county of Marmaros Sziget forests 
form even about 62"/,, of the superficies, on the other 
hand Kursk has 7i"„, Poltava 4*7%, Kherson only 

1-4%. 

In forest-culture and the industrial exploitation 

of forest products only a small part of the Ukrainian 
people are occupied, all the more since almost all 
forests of Ukraina belong to large lands-owners, to 
domains of the state, and to church-land. But by 
international traffic and by a reform of land laws a 
reasonable forest-culture will be developed and will 
open large treasures to civilization. 

Still less developed is the cultivation of vege- 
tables, but it will be developed, as soon as, with 
the aid of foreign industrial circles, trade and commerce 
will grow in the towns of Ukraina. 

Fruit-culture, however, is on a fairly high level 
in Ukraina, but it is sure to improve by the deve- 
lopment of international traffic. The largest area is 
occupied by orchards in Bessarabia (40.000 hectares). 
In Podolia only the peasant's orchards cover more 
than 26.000 hectares. The annual production in Podolia 
and Bessarabia amounts to about 900.000 </ fruit, 
20.000 q nuts and almonds. The highest annual 
production is attained in the Yaila Mountains in the 
government of Taurida: it exceeds 160.000 q fruit and 



112 



40.000 q nuts. Here the most delicate sorts of apples, 
pears, plums, apricots and peaches are grown. 

In closest connexion with fruit culture bee- 
rearing is carried on in Ukraina. The whole produce 
of honey in Russian Ukraina amounted to 125.000 q 
in 1910, of wax it was 13.700 q (i. e. 38% and 34% 
respectively of the total produce of the whole Russian 
Empire.) In Galicia the country in 1900 produced one 
half of the honey and one eighth of the wax of the 
total Austrian produce, i. e. 25.000 q honey and 
350 q wax. 

The stock of cattle is very considerable in 
Ukraina. On an approximate calculation it may be 
estimated to 30 millions at least, 4 millions of which 
fall to the share of Austrian Ukraina. The compara- 
tively smallest live stock is to be found in Galicia, 
where 723 heads of cattle fall to 1000 inhabitants, 
viz. 116 horses, 372 horned cattle, 60 sheep, 172 pigs 
The figure is larger in Russian Ukraina, where for 
instance in the government of Taurida 300 horses, 
280 horned cattle, 620 sheep, 110 pigs, and in the 
province of Kuban 340 horses, 540 horned cattle, 
800 sheep and 210 pigs fall to 1000 inhabitants. Still 
about the middle of the nineteenth century Southern 
Ukraina was one of the most important wool-pro- 
ducing territories on the world's market. Only since 
the last decades of the 19 th century the keen com- 
petition of Australian wool-produce has been making 
itself felt, especially from the moment when in Ukraina 
part of the steppes was brought under cultivation. 
Nevertheless the stock of sheep in Ukraina must be 
calculated to 10 millions at least. On the whole, sheep- 
breeding meets the latest requirements. 



113 



One of the most important means of living of the 
Ukrainian peasantry is poultry-farming. The surplus 
of the production over the local consumption is so 
large, that the whole Ukrainian territory has for many 
years past become an important country of exportation 
of poultry, eggs and feathers to Russia, Austria, Ger- 
many, and England. From the nine Ukrainian go- 
vernments over 600.000 q of eggs were exported in 
1905, more than 90'V„ of which went over the frontier. 
It may be said that the whole Ukrainian territory alone 
furnishes more than one half of the produce of the 
whole Russia. 

Very large is the Ukrainian abundance of mi- 
nerals. Gold, it is true, does not abound, but silver 
is often found, especially in the Kuban and Terek 
territories, where in 1910 about 300.000 q of lead 
and silver ore (i. e. 73% of the total Russian output) 
were raised. Mercury is profusely found in the elevated 
plains of the Donetz, where in 1905 .. . 320.000 kilo- 
grammes of mercury were extracted from cinnabar 
ore. There are no mercury-mines in other parts of 
the former Russian Empire. Very large is the output 
of manganese in Ukraina: in 1907 it amounted to 
about 3,245.000 q, i. e. 32% of the total Russian and 
one sixth of the world's output. Greater still is the 
Ukrainian abundance of iron-ore, though many 
shoots are not yet explored and not yet worked. In 
1907 the output of iron-ore in Ukraina amounted to 
39,900.000 q, i. e. 73 , of the total Russian output. 
Comparatively small is the output of copper, most 
of which is produced in the Caucasus, where in 1910 
the whole output of copper came up to 31 "',, of the 
total output of Russia. 



114 



Restricting ourselves to the most important mi- 
nerals, we have still to refer to the large quantities 
of coal, petroleum, ozocerite, and salt, which are found 
in Ukraina. 

In the elevated plains of the Donetz Ukraina 
possesses one of the largest coal-fields of Europe. 
Its area amounts to 23.000 square kilometres and the 
annual extraction in 1911 came up to 203 million 
metrical quintals, i. e. 70% of the total Russian output 
of coal. Here in 1911 also 31 million metrical quintals 
of anthracite and nearly 34 million metrical quintals 
of coke were produced. 

From the above figures we can understand, that 
although Ukraina takes only the seventh place in the 
coal output of the globe, still in her coal she possesses 
an important and indispensable resource for her in- 
dustry. 

As to petroleum and ozocerite, Ukraina takes 
the first place in Europe. In the Carpathian Mountains 
there are large oil-fields, many of which have not 
yet been opened. In 1911 Galicia produced about 
15 million quintals of petroleum: besides, there are 
large oil-fields in the Ukrainian forelands of the Cau- 
casus. Ozocerite is not produced anywhere in the 
whole world except in East Galicia. 

Finally the Ukrainian salt-mines are very im- 
portant. In the Ukrainian part of East Galicia 540.000 q 
of salt were produced in 1908. In the Donetz territory 
5,000.000 quintals of rock salt were raised in 1911, 
and in the Pontocaspian territory the annual output 
varies between 3V 3 and 5 3 / 4 million metrical quintals. 

If after the above description the Ukrainian terri- 
tory is compared with other European states, we can 



115 



not help counting Ukraina among the countries pro- 
fusely abounding in natural riches. But since Ukraina 
was no independent political organism till the present, 
and could not be governed and administrated after her 
own laws, official statistics concerning the financial 
and economical ability of the Ukrainian people are 
still wanting. Nevertheless it can be asserted with 
certainty, that the Ukrainian people at present already 
has all the properties necessary for a modern political 
organism. The Ukrainian peasant is very modest in 
his wants, has always done his public duties, and 
is one of the most punctual rate-payers. During the 
war he has cleared off all hypothecary debts and thus 
unburdened his estate. The world juncture has made 
him a rich citizen, who has also the economical 
possibility of acquiring the estates of the large land- 
owners by way of full compensation. An agrarian 
reform of this kind is necessary in Ukraina, as was 
mentioned above, and will raise the capacity of the 
Ukrainian peasant for paying taxes to the highest 
degree. The proceeds from the agrarian reform in 
view in favour of the state as well as the effective 
wealth of the Ukrainian peasant will suffice fully to 
meet all financial liabilities of the Ukrainian state. 
So the Allied Powers can find no better debtor than 
the Ukrainian peasant, and with him the whole Ukrai- 
nian state. The effective wealth of the Ukrainian people 
remains indestructible, and neither trade nor commerce 
were so highly developed, owing to the Russian ad- 
ministration of the past, that by the war they could 
have suffered any great losses. On the contrary, free 
and independent Ukraina will after the war open her 
door to international traffic, as soon as by the World 



116 



Congress she is admitted into the community of free 
peoples. 

History proves that at the time of her political 
independence Ukraina had a flourishing industry and 
a wide-spread commerce (see chapter II.). Neither 
the Polish nor the Russian governments took care to 
encourage the development of trade and commerce : 
so in this respect, too, the Ukrainian people depended 
on its own strength. It created a remarkable home- 
industry, which quite recently had gradually to give 
way to manufacture in Ukraina as well as in the 
whole Europe. On the other hand imposing syndi- 
cates, consisting only of Ukrainian partners, were 
formed in Ukraina, who could bear comparison with 
the great trading companies of Western Europe as 
to the strength of their organizations and to the ca- 
pitals, which they put into circulation. 

Certainly much remains to be done on the domain 
of industry and commerce, but the Republic of the 
Ukrainian People hopes, that the Allied Powers will 
render her their assistance, all the more since it is 
to their interest, to bring the products of their industry 
to Ukraina and thus infinitely to expand their outlet 
for export-goods. 

The Republic of the Ukrainian People does not 
want to seclude herself from the civilized world, as 
the former Russian Empire did, but must obtain her 
political independence, to pull down the barriers, 
which enclosed her in the past. The re-establishment 
of Russia in her former frontiers would be at the 
same time the re-establishment of Russian policy, 
under a new name. The psychology of the Russian 
people is inconsistent with the psychology of all other 



117 



European peoples, and whether Bolshevism will remain 
at the head of affairs in Russia, or will be succeeded 
by another government, still two entirely different 
views of life cannot be reconciled for any length of 
time. After the re-establishment of the former Russian 
Empire the Ukrainian people would not be able any 
longer to form the connecting link between the East 
and the West, and the barrier would have to be 
erected as before. Only a free and independent Ukraina 
can invite the civilized world to partake in the en- 
joyment of the Ukrainian natural wealth. 






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